CBS picks up Fairfield native’s debut novel

AMY SCHUMER WILL EXECUTIVE PRODUCE TV ADAPTATION OF ‘MERCY HOUSE’

texts between family and friends who had been rooting for me for a decade. As my grandfather put it, ‘You could go outside in a rainstorm right now and not get wet.’ ”

Schumer called “Mercy House” a “life-altering debut featuring fierce, funny and irreverent women who battle the most powerful institution in the world.” She also says that Dillon’s book about renegade nuns “is the book we’ve all been waiting for.”

Protagonist Sister Evelyn puts the needs of her charges before herself and at times the doctrines of the Catholic church to help them heal from their past traumas.

Sister Evelyn, along with two other nuns, Sisters Josephine and Maria of the order of the St. Joseph Sisters of Mercy run a women’s shelter in Brooklyn, where they willingly give up their own beds to help the women who need them. The nuns are happily operating their facility until a bishop from Sister Evelyn’s past comes to investigate the order as part of the Apostolic Visitation or nunquisition in 2010.

Dillon says “it was a dream” when Schumer reached out to Dillon after reading her book to discuss it in more detail.

“She’s been so supportive and so generous with her enthusiasm,” Dillon says. “It was the ultimate validation. I was a big fan of hers already, and had actually just finished reading her memoir when I heard she wanted to discuss my novel. I thought, ‘If someone so brilliant and influential as Amy Schumer is interested in my book, maybe we have something pretty special here.’ After we finished our initial phone call, I started laughing hysterically, which evolved into tears. It was just so surreal.”

“The Good Wife” writer and producer Corrinne Brinkerhoff will work with Schumer on the series as a writer and executive producer; the series itself is in the very early stages of development. Dillon says that she won’t be writing the scripts with Brinkerhoff, but she is consulting on the scripts.

“For the most part, the television show will be in the very capable hands of our screenwriter and producers, but I’ll be able to consult on each script, which I’m really excited about. It’ll be fun to get a peek into the workings of a different genre, and a challenge to re-imagine the story in a new format.”