“I wash the dishes and watch the black sky turn orange and blue in the sunrise. I feel a soothing warmth come over my body as I give myself to the sky. I’m in it. In the sky. In the world. In the universe. Melting. Magic. Power. God. The dishes done with a smile. Easy. Sweet. Brief reprieves that keep my monster mind at bay.”

This is a quote from David Darmstaedter’s book “My Monster,” which filmmaker and actor Mark Ruffalo announced today via his Twitter feed would be adapted for the big screen, with the “Sympathy for Delicious” director once again behind the camera.

In a day and age when books are losing their cultural value fast thanks to discount-driving devices like the Kindle, turning a story into a movie bequeathes artistic content a sort of immortality.

Immortality (of the vindictive kind) is particularly present in “My Monster,” which is the ragingly unsparing narrative of a beautiful man, Darmstaedter himself (the work is autobiographical) who goes from highly successful model to porn theatre Quasimodo; the cause behind his descent in flames? Drug addiction.

The fight to get high, the battle to kick, raising a child alone, living in Hollywood. “Monster” has all the elements of an extremely compelling feature film; let’s hope the on-screen adaptation will avoid the clichés of excessive sentimentality or drug-taking, both of which are overly done and well, tedious.