Man in the Dark

(Paperback, Main)

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

'I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness.'

So begins Paul Auster's brilliant, devastating novel about the many realities we inhabit as wars flame all around us.

Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is staying in his daughter's house in Vermont, recovering from a car accident. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would prefer to forget - his wife's recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughter's boyfriend, Titus. The retired book critic imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the twin towers did not fall, and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union, and a bloody civil war ensued. As the night progresses, Brill's story grows increasingly intense, and what he is so desperately trying to avoid insists on being told. Joined in the early hours by his granddaughter, he gradually opens up to her and recounts the story of his marriage. After she falls asleep, he at last finds the courage to revisit the trauma of Titus's death.

Passionate and shocking, Man in the Dark is a novel of our moment, a book that forces us to confront the blackness of night even as it celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a world capable of the most grotesque violence.

Reviews

"Works beautifully . . . This is perhaps Auster's best book. Like Vonnegut's classic anti-war novel ["Slaughterhouse Five"], Auster's book leaves one with a depth of feeling much larger than might be expected from such a small and concise work of art."--"San Francisco Chronicle "

""Man in the Dark" is at once haunting, thought-provoking, emotional, and compellingly readable."--"The Philadelphia Inquirer"
"Remarkable . . . "Man in the Dark "possesses a grand and generous heart."--"The Boston Globe

""Auster's latest astute and mesmerizing metaphysical fiction . . . A master of the matter-of-factly fantastic, Auster tells an utterly authentic story of culpability and survival, the vortex of loss, and our endless struggle to translate terror into understanding."--"Booklist "(starred review)
"A novel that kept my attention from the first page all the way to the last. Frankly, it hypnotized me."--NPR's "All Things Considered "

"[Auster's] magic has never flourished m

"Works beautifully . . . This is perhaps Auster's best book. Like Vonnegut's classic anti-war novel ["Slaughterhouse Five"], Auster's book leaves one with a depth of feeling much larger than might be expected from such a small and concise work of art."--"San Francisco Chronicle "

""Man in the Dark" is at once haunting, thought-provoking, emotional, and compellingly readable."--"The Philadelphia Inquirer"
"Remarkable . . . "Man in the Dark "possesses a grand and generous heart."--"The Boston Globe

""Auster's latest astute and mesmerizing metaphysical fiction . . . A master of the matter-of-factly fantastic, Auster tells an utterly authentic story of culpability and survival, the vortex of loss, and our endless struggle to translate terror into understanding."--"Booklist "(starred review)
"A novel that kept my attention from the first page all the way to the last. Frankly, it hypnotized me."--NPR's "All Things Considered "

"[Auster's] magic has never flourished more fully than it does in "Man in the Dark. . . . "The novel delivers intense reading pleasure from start to finish."--"Orlando Sentinel ""Provoking and entertaining in brilliant fashion . . . [Auster] draws you into a literary maze and sets you marveling at how he will get you out."--"The Seattle Times

"

"Intricately layered, playful with the notions of 'real' and 'unreal' . . . "Man in the Dark "is the work of a master, confident of his powers to move readers smoothly between worlds, totally in control of setting, pace, and dialogue. . . . A deep, fraught book."--"Daily Kos "

"Auster has crafted a stirring, politically charged portrait of the power of fiction."--"The Star-Ledger "(Newark)

Author Bio

Paul Auster was born in New Jersey in 1947. After attending Columbia University, he lived in France for four years. Since 1974 he has published poems, essays, novels, screenplays and translations. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.