Meet ‘The Favorites’ Author Layne Fargo At A Block Club Event May 4
ROGERS PARK — Rogers Park author Layne Fargo’s latest novel “The Favorites” — a “Wuthering Heights”-inspired page-turner about a pair of star-crossed ice dancers — quickly became a best-seller.
It also was a Book of Month Club selection, and was nominated in the fiction category for the 2025 Chicago Review of Books Awards.
Now, Deadline has announced that “The Favorites” is in production at Netflix under Welle Entertainment, led by Oscar-winning producer Cathy Schulman (“The Idea of You,” “Crash”). Kate Gersten, who wrote “The Last Showgirl” starring Pamela Anderson and directed by Gia Coppola, is writing the script.
You can meet Fargo at a special Block Club Book Club event, in partnership with Jarvis Square Books, 7 p.m. May 4 at the Jarvis Square Tavern, 1502 W. Jarvis Ave.
Rogers Park reporter Madison Savedra and Fargo will discuss her book, her writing process and these latest production developments, followed by a Q&A and a book-signing session. Other Block Club staff will be in attendance as well.
Tickets are $10, which includes your first drink, or $25 with a book to be signed by the author.
“I’m so excited about the possibility of ‘The Favorites’ coming to the screen and especially thrilled to have a team of powerhouse women working to bring my characters and their glamorous, gritty world to life,” Fargo told Block Club,
“The Favorites” takes themes from “Wuthering Heights” and transports them into the modern-day world of ice dancing, complete with Chicago-area settings. In the vein of fellow best-sellers like Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “Daisy Jones and the Six,” the Rogers Park resident’s novel uses epistolary techniques to convey the riveting story through numerous (fictional) interviews as well as the narration of Katarina, an extremely ambitious ice dancer.
Growing up in rural Illinois north of Chicago, Katarina drafts her brooding childhood friend, Heath, into becoming her ice dance partner. The intense, competitive world on the ice leads the pair into one dramatic peak and valley after another on the road to Olympic gold.
As the book’s tagline puts it, “To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession.”
The May 4 event promises to be not only an enjoyable exploration of “The Favorites,” but a celebration of an extremely fun stretch of Rogers Park. Limited tickets for this exclusive event are available here.
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