Sophomore’s Book Is Headed to Hollywood

Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan ’08 got in, got $500,000, and got a film deal.

Her debut novel, called “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” will be available in bookstores this spring. The book, which tracks an academically-driven girl of Indian descent as she learns to loosen up, has already been picked up by DreamWorks Studios, who is in talks with Viswanathan about a film adaptation. Contrafilm and Alloy Entertainment will produce, according to Variety.

The joint English and American Literature and Language and Economics concentrator—who turned 19 just last month—directed all requests for comment to her publicist, Michelle Aielli, But Aielli remained tight-lipped about the film deal, only saying that “the project was shopped to studios” before it was picked up and that “Kara Holden is set to adapt the script for the film.”

But Viswanathan’s book did not have such ambitious beginnings.

Her novel was first discovered during Viswanathan’s senior year at Bergen County Academy in New Jersey when she solicited help from IvyWise, a company that guides students through the college application process.

After making its way to her IvyWise aide, Katherine Cohen, Viswanathan’s nascent manuscript was passed onto Suzanne Gluck and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh of the William Morris Agency, who shipped the script to various publishers.

Viswanathan’s unfinished manuscript eventually grabbed the attention of Little, Brown, and Company, who offered Viswanathan a $500,000 for a two-book deal while still in her first year at the College.

“When I heard the size of the advance, I nearly fell off my chair,” Cohen told The New York Sun last year. “I have several novelist friends, and nobody I know has received that kind of money. I’m very proud of her ­­— and I’m proud that I was able to play a role in her success.”

The half-million dollar deal is unusual considering that most unpublished authors receive $10,000 for their first novel. Even more unique, Viswanthan is the youngest client that Little, Brown has ever contracted in their 110 year history, according to the Sun.

The novel chronicles the supposedly fictitious Mehta family’s rigorous campaign to get their daughter, Opal Mehta, accepted into Harvard University, as evidenced by the family’s game plan HOWGIH: How Opal Will Get Into Harvard. However, the Harvard Dean of Admission’s blatant suggestion during the college interview that the over-achieving valedictorian learn to have some fun spawns an equally effective yet starkly contrasted alternate plan, HOWGAL: How Opal Will Get A Life.

Little, Brown, and Company reports that “the warm family story at the heart of the novel will remind readers of Bend It Like Beckham, but there’s also enough teen comedy to lure fans of... the hit movie Mean Girls.

Viswanathan’s book continues a strong tradition of Harvard students delving into the film industry.

The novel will be released April 4.

The last time a Harvard student, while still in attendance, was approached with a film deal was in the fall of 2002 when the autobiography of former Harvard student Elizabeth Murray commenced filming in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Murray’s book about her struggles as an adolescent living on the streets, entitled Breaking Waters, was picked up by Hyperion Press and quickly adapted into a Lifetime movie, which became the most watched broadcast in Lifetime’s history.

And in 2000, Harvard student Brooke Ellison ’00 was offered a book deal in her senior year and was soon approached by Christopher Reeve with a proposal for a movie based on her life as a paraplegic.