The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty

(Hardback, Main)

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Description

In Vendela Vida's taut and mesmerizing novel of ideas, a woman travels to Casablanca, Morocco, on mysterious business. While checking into her hotel, the woman is robbed of her wallet and passport - all of her money and identification. Though the police investigate, the woman senses an undercurrent of complicity between the hotel staff and the authorities - she knows she'll never recover her possessions. Stripped of her identity, she feels burdened by the crime yet strangely liberated by her sudden freedom to be anyone she chooses.

A chance encounter with a movie producer leads to a job posing as a stand-in for a well-known film star. The star reels her in deeper, though, and soon she's inhabiting the actress's skin off set, too - going deeper into the Casablancan night and further from herself. And so continues a strange and breathtaking journey full of unexpected turns, an adventure in which the woman finds herself moving further and further away from the person she once was.

Told with vibrant, lush detail and a wicked sense of humor, The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty is part literary mystery, part psychological thriller - an unforgettable novel that explores free will, power, and a woman's right to choose not her past, perhaps not her present, but certainly her future. This is Vendela Vida's most assured and ambitious novel yet.

Reviews

A thriller-taut story of a crisis of identity and opportunity, full of lies, shadows and subterfuge. * Psychologies *
Very funny... The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty is also moving, clever and bright as a button. * Independent on Sunday *
Full of surprises, it demands to be read in one go. * Good Housekeeping's Ones to Watch *
This enigmatic psychological thriller... puts the reader squarely in the shoes of the protagonist, making this already taut mystery thriller an even more intense read. * Scotsman *
[A]n intimate and understated tale...powerful and empowering, thanks to the author's innate skill. * The Big Issue *
Ms Vida's novel portrays with cool wit and suspense the explosive emancipation of a woman who is finally empowered to grab some warmth, drama, magic for herself. * International New York Times *
An intoxicatingly strange quest for anonymity... what emerges from this shifting, uncertain terrain is a novel of sublime unease and delicious bewilderment. You are not yourself, and it is wonderful. * Guardian *

Author Bio

Vendela Vida is the author of the acclaimed novels And Now You Can Go, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers. She is a founding editor of The Believer magazine, and the editor of The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and children.