It’s kind of excruciating to watch a wish come true slowly. It is nevertheless excellent news that HBO has now ordered the Damon Lindelof pilot they put into development last summer, The Leftovers. That means casting and production and hopefully, hopefully, Lindelof’s first TV series since Lost.

The pickup news was reported by Deadline. We first told you about The Leftovers in June; it’s based on the after-the-rapture 2011 book of the same name written by Tom Perrotta, with whom Lindelof has been writing the pilot. If the show moves forward, Lindelof will be the showrunner. Here’s the book synopsis from Amazon:

A New York Times Notable Book for 2011
A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book for 2011
The New York Times bestseller now in paperback—A thought-provoking engrossing novel about love, connection, and loss from the author of The Abstinence Teacher and Little Children

What if your life was upended in an instant? What if your spouse or your child disappeared right in front of your eyes? Was it the Rapture or something even more difficult to explain? How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event? These are the questions confronting the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, a formerly comfortable suburban community that lost over a hundred people in the Sudden Departure. Kevin Garvey, the new mayor, wants to move forward, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized neighbors, even as his own family disintegrates. His wife, Laurie, has left him to enlist in the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence but haunt the town’s streets as “living reminders” of God’s judgment. His son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a crooked “prophet” who calls himself Holy Wayne. Only his teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she’s definitely not the sweet “A” student she used to be.

Through the prism of a single family, Perrotta illuminates a familiar America made strange by grief and apocalyptic anxiety. The Leftovers is a powerful and deeply moving book about regular people struggling to hold onto a belief in their futures.

Come on, HBO, please keep making this wish come true.