When Clarke Speicher (spike-er) asked how I liked the screen adaptation of Train Dreams , Denis Johnson’s novella following the solitary logger Robert Granier in the early 20th-century American West, he was actually asking whether it measured up to its source material. That is, after all, the question about adaptations. Still, it felt loaded. If it had been anyone else, I would’ve felt at liberty to prattle without worrying whether I’d arrived at any kind of thesis. That I love the book was beside the point. I felt caught out because it was Clarke doing the asking. But he isn’t an author, screenwriter, director, producer, critic, agent, or editor. He isn’t a journalist or influencer. Clarke is something much more specific and much rarer: a professional book reader who evaluates literature specifically for screen adaptation. So after a few seconds of mealy-mouthed equivocation about Train Dreams , I came to my senses and flipped the question back on him.…