By Jake Coyle

Movie theaters may be shuttered across the country, and projects delayed, but there is still newly released work of lurid and pulpy goodness from Brian De Palma.

The 79-year-old filmmaker has written his first work of fiction, “Are Snakes Necessary?” a crime novel he penned with his partner, Susan Lehman, a former editor for The New York Times. The book, full of snappy dialogue and sharp knives, bears plenty of the hallmarks of De Palma. Movies are baked into it (the title refers to a book Henry Fonda is seen reading in “The Lady Eve”). Martin Scorsese sums it up in a blurb: “It’s like having a new Brian De Palma picture.”

Just over two weeks ago, I drove out to East Hampton to meet De Palma (the director of “Carrie,” “Scarface,” “Body Double” and “Carlito’s Way”) at an inn near his and Lehman’s Long Island house.

The conversation spanned his new book (a John Edwards-inspired tale about a senator having an affair with a young staffer), his grim thoughts about the advent of streaming (“The industry is eclipsing the artistry”) and his plans for a movie partly inspired by Harvey Weinstein.

An abiding passion for cinema coursed through De Palma’s reflections. Lately, he’s been soaking up westerns. The day before, he said, he watched John Ford’s “My Darling Clementine” again - a movie De Palma, noted, that knew how to shoot a shoot-out.

Why is “Are Snakes Necessary?” a book and not a movie?

Too many ideas and not enough time to make all the movies. You write a lot of stuff that never makes it into a movie. With my partner, Susan, we just basically did it because we had fun doing it. We had never written a novel before, neither of us. I had an idea for a script I had never developed based on the Edwards campaign and the girl (Rielle Hunter, the woman he had an affair with) making webisodes, those little intimate things she shot. As I was watching this happen, being a director, you can see someone flirting with the camera. We started with that.

Has the straightforward process of fiction coronavirus.

Seoul City official Na Baek-ju said Friday the musical’s international tour was halted following the positive test of an unidentified Canadian actress, who began experiencing throat pain and dry coughs days after she began performing at the city’s Blue Square theater on March 14. She last appeared on stage on Monday, a day before