Showtime Is Adapting Mat Johnson’s Satire About Societal Perceptions of Race Into a Series

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Deadline reports that Showtime is adapting Mat Johnson’s novel Loving Day into a “potential comedy series.” The network moved to acquire the rights as the battle for them became “competitive.” The book, which was only released in May, explores themes of racial identity, telling the story of Warren Duffy — an American living in Wales whose father is Irish American and mother is African American. After his father dies, Duffy moves back to Philadelphia into his father’s dilapidated home.

The book is semi-autobiographical; Johnson’s own father is Irish and mother is African American. It satires the accepted conventions of identity whilst offering considerable pathos. Johnson has written about his experience of growing up in Philadelphia living in a black neighborhood with white skin, in an essay called “Proving my Blackness” for the New York Times.

Showtime is now looking for writers to collaborate on the script with Johnson, who’ll executive produce.