Noonan, Brandon 1979–

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Noonan, Brandon 1979–

PERSONAL:

Born May 8, 1979, in Yuba City, CA. Education: University of Southern California B.F.A.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Berkeley, CA.

CAREER:

Screenwriter and novelist.

WRITINGS:

Plenty Porter (young-adult novel), Amulet (New York, NY), 2006.

Dem (screenplay; based on the book by William Melvin Kelley), Pretty Pictures, 2006.

Arrow (screenplay), Warner Bros., 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including Swink online.

SIDELIGHTS:

Twelve-year-old Plenty Porter, the narrator of Brandon Noonan's coming-of-age novel, is the youngest of eleven children raised by her sharecropper father in rural Galesburg, Illinois. Set in the early 1950s, Plenty Porter recreates the stifled relationships in the girl's disconnected family, where human relationships take a back seat to survival amid economic hardship. For Plenty, a sensitive and perceptive preteen who stands out because of her height, a friendship with Ed Prindergast, the son of the local landowner, provides her with the perspective needed to strive for more in her own life and recognize that her outsider role in both her own family and society at large does not limit her future. Noonan, a graduate of the film program at the University of Southern California, wrote his highly praised young-adult novel while working as a Hollywood screenwriter. Among the films he has contributed screenplays to are Dem, which Noonan adapted from the 1967 novel by William Melvin Kelley, and the martial-arts movie Arrow.

In reviewing Noonan's first work of fiction, a Kirkus Reviews writer praised Plenty Porter as ‘smooth and compelling reading,’ while Cindy Dobrez compared the novel with Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird. While noting that the book features an ending that readers cannot predict, the Kirkus Reviews critic added that Noonan's first novel ‘occasionally has the feel of a writing exercise.’ ‘Plenty has a distinctive voice,’ wrote Kliatt contributor Janis Flint-Ferguson in a review of the book, ‘and her account of the year is poignant in its innocent retelling’ of alcoholism, abuse, and an attempted suicide driven by her older sister's despair. Faith Brautigam, discussing Plenty Porter in School Library Journal, cited Noonan's ‘stylistically innovative’ opening and concluded that the book's ‘beautifully written sentences,… well-shaped plot,’ and independent-minded young heroine make Noonan ‘a writer to watch."