Love and Death on Long Island is a cult novella written by Gilbert Adair and first published in 1990, it was subsequently adapted to make the 1997 film directed by Richard Kwietniowski, starring Jason Priestley, John Hurt, Fiona Loewi, Sheila Hancock and Anne Reid. It has latterly been adapted as stage play with music by Ben Parry, book and libretto by Gilbert Adair himself, directed by Edward Williams with Anna Carteret, Gordon Fraser and Richard O'Callaghan in pre-production for presention in London's West End 2008.
The storyline of obsession somewhat resembles that of the movie Death in Venice. Given Adair's self-consciousness as a writer, all such resemblances are likely to be intentional.
The film has a musical score by Richard Grassby-Lewis. It was filmed in Nova Scotia.
The title includes a pun: Death/De'Ath ...The name Giles De'Ath also echoes that of Gilbert Adair.
Giles De'Ath is a widower who doesn't like anything modern. He goes to movies and falls in love with film star, Ronnie Bostock. He then investigates everything about the movie and Ronnie. After that he travels to Long Island city where Ronnie lives and meets him, pretending that Ronnie is a great actor and that's why Giles admires him. Written by Anonymous
Giles De'ath; widower, stuffy British author, out-of-step fogey. Giles gets locked out of his house one day and opts to see an E.M. Forrester adaptation at a local cinema to pass the time. He mistakenly goes into the wrong theater and, as he is about to leave the purile American film, notices a young actor who immediately strikes his fancy. From there, we go on a journey with Giles as his obsession with the mediocre young actor goes from slight interest to a schoolgirl like obsession. This evolution ultimately brings him to Chesterton, Long Island, home of the actor. His miraculous encounter with the lad in some ways pushes the reserved Brit's emotional threshold over the top. The subtext of a homosexuality is too obvious to be taken seriously, for the real subtext is something more subtle. Written by Irv
