Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment have optioned Claire Messud novel "The Emperor's Children."
Feature adaptation will be produced by Imagine's Brian Grazer, and Ron Howard is eyeing it as a potential directing vehicle.
Book is a comedy of manners set in New York in the months before and following Sept. 11, 2001. Three Brown U.-educated students, raised in upper-crust surroundings and expected to do something important, hit 30 while still struggling to fulfill that promise.
"The Emperor's Children" was nominated for the Man Booker Prize in 2006.
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