When people try to describe the depth and scope of AMC’s now-concluded, much-mourned Mad Men, “novelistic” is one of the first words they usually reach for. Like The Wire or The Sopranos—where creator Matthew Weiner sharpened his teeth before making the jump to helming his own series—the show cast a wide net in its efforts to capture the feeling of 1960s America, frequently willing to throw aside the burdens of plot in order to present in-depth explorations of its myriad characters and their inner worlds.
Now, Vulture is reporting that Weiner is close to completing a project that might be even more novelistic than his celebrated, Emmy-winning show: an actual novel. The writer and producer is currently set to publish Heather, The Totality—apparently based on an “unsettling” conversation Weiner once heard a young girl have on a train—in the fall of 2017. According to Vulture, the book is being published by Little, Brown, and Company, and will be a “dark fable set in contemporary Manhattan” that follows “three people from two worlds who are on a collision course in pursuit of a beautiful child.”