If you’ve never read a book by gay writer Colm Tóibín – and that includes myself – soon you won’t have to; you’ll be able to watch a movie adapt of his latest page-turner and make up your mind.

The Irish novelist has written a bookcase-full of gay themed fiction and fact-based drama, with his 2004 novel about closet case Henry James getting nominated for the Booker Prize for Literature. He tells Reuters that there’s been a lot of Hollywood interest in his latest book, Brooklyn, and expects a deal to be inked in the next few weeks.

Brooklyn, which is already winning awards, is set in New York’s Irish community in the 1950′s. It follows a young immigrant called Eilis who moves there from Ireland to find work and gets more than she bargained for. No homo interest in this one, I’m afraid.

Typical Hollywood to be circling one of the few straight stories by a successful, gay writer, only to ignore his gay tinged stuff, despite all the awards. That said, Hallmark did produce a TV movie version of The Blackwater Lightship for CBS a few years ago. It’s the story of a family brought together by a son/brother dying of AIDS and the movie earned an Emmy nomination for Angela Lansbury.