Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill musical is now becoming a novel
Diablo Cody, who wrote the book for the musical, is involved in the adaptation
The journey of Alanis Morissette’s 1995 album Jagged Little Pill is certainly unusual: First it was an album, a thing that’s just music. Then, more than 20 years later, it debuted as a jukebox musical that added a plot to the original songs (plus some new ones), with the book being written by Diablo Cody. Now, Cody, Morissette, and Jagged Little Pill producer/co-creator Glen Ballard are teaming up with YA author Eric Smith to complete this weird journey and turn the Jagged Little Pill musical into a novel—which is a thing that’s just story and has no music.
This comes from Rolling Stone, and it means that there will now be a version of Jagged Little Pill that everyone can enjoy, no matter if you like all music, a little music, or no music. (The Jagged Little Pill audiobook is going to significantly complicate matters, though.) The Jagged Little Pill novel will be available in April, and Rolling Stone says the increasingly large web of creators who had a hand in this saga all helped put the novel together in some fashion.
The original musical is about a family going through various struggles that are inspired by the lyrics of Alanis Morissette songs, primarily off of Jagged Little Pill but not exclusively. It earned a whopping 15 Tony nominations last year during the weird COVID-abbreviated musical season, ultimately taking home Best Performance By A Featured Actress In A Musical (for Lauren Patten) and Best Book Of A Musical (Cody).
For anyone who needs more Morissette in their lives, there’s the HBO documentary Jagged that she denounced and also the upcoming ABC sitcom Relatable that’s loosely based on her life. Soon, hopefully, Jagged Little Pill will get adapted into a graphic novel and continue its journey even more, but we’ll have to settle for what we have now until then.