‘Lemony Snicket’ author ready to bring his books to life in Modesto

Daniel Handler will not be bringing his accordion to Modesto – unless specifically asked.

“I haven’t been asked to bring an accordion. So I won’t, because the question, ‘Why haven’t you brought an accordion?’ is charming. But the question, ‘Why have you brought an accordion?’ is not,” he said.

Still, even without his squeeze box, Handler should have no problem fielding a crowd when he comes to speak at a benefit event for the Stanislaus Library Foundation at the Gallo Center for the Arts on Sunday. The bestselling author is known to most people under the age of 30 (and their parents) as Lemony Snicket, the narrator behind the wildly popular children’s novels “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” A portion of the book series was turned into a feature film starring Jim Carrey, and the books soon will be adapted for television as a new original series for Netflix.

The 44-year-old author spoke with The Bee from his San Francisco home the day news of the TV deal was announced last week. This will be the first live-action family show the streaming service produces. It has had previous adult dramatic hits with shows including “Orange Is the New Black” and “House of Cards.”

“We are in the super-early stages, so there’s not much planning. The plan right now is to find a director,” Handler said. “I guess that I hope this is like my own experiences with media when I was growing up and watching things with my parents. Lemony Snicket appears to be a similar thing. A lot of children are reading (the books) by themselves, but a lot of families are also reading together. I hope a nice adaptation would have some of that energy. I remember pulling out the bed on the family room sofa and watching things together. I picture this like that.”

The series, which was published in 13 books from 1999 to 2006, followed the three orphaned Baudelaire siblings, whose parents died in an arson fire and who are forced to live with their evil uncle, Count Olaf. The books went on to sell 60 million copies collectively worldwide.

Handler has returned to his Lemony Snicket alter ego with the new “All the Wrong Questions” series. The prequels to “A Series of Unfortunate Events” feature a younger Snicket in a detective story. The third book in the series was released in September, and the next is expected in the fall of 2015.

While “A Series of Unfortunate Events” has been described as children’s gothic novels, “All the Wrong Questions” is Handler’s foray into noir children’s fiction.

For both series, Handler has used his Snicket pen to full effect. “In my mind, Lemony Snicket is more narrator, not a pseudonym. ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ is when he is a full-grown man. ‘All the Wrong Questions’ is Lemony Snicket when he is 13. I always thought it would be different to publish a book under the name of a narrator. Children’s literature has been very good to me, and it has been an adventure to do it,” he said.

Through the years, Handler has had fun with his alter ego. At public events and in press announcements, he often calls himself “Lemony Snicket’s representative.” The Netflix announcement about the new television deal said: “Mr. Snicket’s participation will be limited, given his emotional distress, but the project has the full involvement of his legal, literary and social representative Daniel Handler, who is often mistaken for him.”

Netflix plans to produce all 13 volumes of the “Unfortunate Events” series. The 2004 film adaptation combined the first three books into one movie. Handler said he thinks the TV format will be a better fit for the stories.

“Paramount Pictures at no time was interested in a 26-hour movie, which seemed fair,” Handler said. “But a lot of things happened in the series, so this seemed pretty ideal to me.”

He was particularly pleased with the Netflix partnership because of the company’s often unorthodox approach to programming.

“While I don’t think we’ll drag a women’s prison into it (a reference to Netflix’s popular series ‘Orange Is the New Black’), they’re really interested in creating programming that is more unusual than network TV,” Handler said. “In terms of children’s programming, it will be interesting to see what form it takes, what structure it can be. And I like the idea you don’t have to stop for commercial breaks. That was something I was nervous about when various broadcast TV things drifted by. I’m not interested in selling sugar to children in between bouts of narrative. That was one of the things I was happy about with Netflix.”

There is no time frame yet for when “A Series of Unfortunate Events” might make it to the air. Handler joked, “I hope it comes out before I die, and I hope I don’t die soon.”

The amount of Handler’s involvement in the production also is up in the air for now. The author worked on some early drafts of the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” screenplay but was ultimately replaced before the final draft. He said he is willing to be as helpful or hands-off as wanted.

“It really depends on the director, and we’re trying to assemble a group of people now. I’m willing to be as useful as I can be,” he said. “This is new territory for everyone, but I’m interested in getting interesting people to work on it. I’m not someone interested in making sure every detail is exactly as I imagined. I did that in the books already.”

Outside of his Lemony Snicket persona, Handler has published a handful of adult novels and short-story collections under his own name. His newest novel, “We Are Pirates,” will be released by Bloomsbury Publishing in February. Handler said switching between the youth and adult worlds isn’t that different.

“They all feel the same; you’re trying to tell an interesting story in an interesting way,” he said. “The pirate book has some young people in it. I wrote that and put it aside, wrote ‘All the Wrong Questions’ and came back to it. It’s all pretty fluid for me. I’m lucky enough to get to do whatever I want and try not to squander that opportunity.”

Among those opportunities are book tours and speaking engagements like his Gallo Center stop. Handler said his appearance will include discussion of his work, some readings, a game show and volunteers from the audience. His Modesto date also will have one bonus feature.

“I have a lot of family in Modesto, so people curious about what my cousins look like can scan the audience and guess,” said Handler, who grew up in San Francisco and has visited the Valley frequently over the years for family events and holidays. “Modesto already has water, wealth, contentment and health, so I don’t know what else we can bring, really.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2014 at 1:00 AM with the headline "‘Lemony Snicket’ author ready to bring his books to life in Modesto."