The Reservoir

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Description

A former Wall Street veteran, quarantined by the coronavirus, becomes consumed with madnessor the fulfillment of his own mythic fate.

The Reservoir follows an unexceptional man in an exceptional time. We see our present-day pandemic world and New York City through the eyes of a former Wall Street veteran, Ridley, as he looks back upon his life in his enforced quarantine solitude, wondering what it all means and who he really is.

Sitting and brooding night after night, gazing out his huge picture window high above the Central Park Reservoir, Ridley spots a flashing light in an apartment across the park as if a lonely quarantined person is signaling him in Morse code. His determination to find out who this mystery woman is leads him on an epic quest that will ultimately tempt him with either delusional madness or the fulfillment of his own mythic fate.

Is he a dying man going mad or an everyman metamorphosing into a hero Or both We accompany Ridley as he leaves the safety of his apartment window to save the Fifth Avenue femme fatale and descends into a dangerous, increasingly surreal world of global conspiracies, madness, and sickness of this viral time. As Ridleys actions grow more and more uncharacteristic, he realises the key to all the mysteries of now, and even all of history, seem to lie deep beneath the freezing waters of the reservoir.

The Reservoir is a twisted rom-com for our distanced time, when the merest touch could kill and conspiracy theories propagate like virusesa contemporary union of Death in Venice, Rear Window, and The Plague.

'This beautiful fever dream of a novella put me in mind of Gabriel Garca Mrquez because of its sense of romance and humour in the midst of calamity. Ill never look at Central Park the same way. Amanda Peet

'A heartbreaking story of the cloaked complexities of father-daughter love framed as a sort of virtuoso suicide note. In its depiction of the breakthrough longings that come with growing older, it also struck me, wonderfully, as a contemporary Death in Venice.' Walter Kirn, author of Blood Will Out

Biting and funny, The Reservoir is also deep and reflective. A mystery wrapped in a fever dream. A tale for our infectious times. Chris Carter, director/writer, creator of The X-Files

Reviews

Additional praise for The Reservoir:

"Evocative, chilly prose that wouldn't be out of place in a late Don DeLillo novel. Like his previous novels Bucky F*cking Dent and Miss Subways, it's a love letter to Duchovny's native New York. But it's also a smart story about obsession. A slim, compelling tale of a man on the brink."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Inspired by Duchovny's self-reflection while sequestered in his own aerie above Central Park at the height of the pandemic, this work is provocative, challenging, and not without its moments of dark humor."
--Library Journal

"This swift and unnerving fever-dream of a novella, Duchovny's fifth work of fiction, is saturated with mythic and literary allusions and shaped by resonant riffs on Poe and Mann. At once philosophical and suspenseful, grandly imaginative and sharply funny, this mind-bending story of delusion and longing is a dark reflection of New York's countless crimes and tragedies and much-tested resilience, emblematic of the suffering and tenacity of all of humanity."
--Booklist

"This intelligent effort further burnishes Duchovny's status as a gifted novelist."
--Publishers Weekly

"David Duchovny's existentialist novella is not to be missed. [The Reservoir] is a novel of many well-crafted and complex lines [and] Duchovny's writing is a combination of high and low--and yes, that distinction still exists, if barely. His metaphors and similes are arresting . . . The Reservoir is an important novel for how it captures, not just where we are now, but where we are forever. Disease--like Covid, or like tuberculosis in The Magic Mountain--takes us on a journey outward and at the same time inward."
--City Journal

"The progeny of our current pandemic is various: illness and death, of course, but also economic dislocation and personal isolation, the concept of 'social distancing' having quickly morphed from an advisory into a way of life. David Duchovny's excellent new novella, The Reservoir, is a fever dream born out of this isolation."

--PopMatters

"Bump [The Reservoir] to the top of your summer reading list immediately."
--CultureWag

"David Duchovny writes like Bob Dylan, but in prose. There's irony, poetry, there's social commentary. There's a brooding outrage. And there's romance, too. The complex, multilayered novella, The Reservoir . . . is an easy-to-read, hard-to-forget page-turner."
--Pavlovic Today

"This beautiful fever dream of a novella put me in mind of Gabriel Garca Mrquez because of its sense of romance--and humor--in the midst of calamity. I'll never look at Central Park the same way."
--Amanda Peet

"A heartbreaking story of the cloaked complexities of father-daughter love framed as a sort of virtuoso suicide note. In its depiction of the breakthrough longings that come with growing older, it also struck me, wonderfully, as a contemporary Death in Venice."
--Walter Kirn, author of Blood Will Out

"Biting and funny, The Reservoir is also deep and reflective. A mystery wrapped in a fever dream. A tale for our infectious times."
--Chris Carter, director/writer, creator of The X-Files

"Equal parts Rear Window and The Plague, David Duchovny's new novella is a wildly imaginative morality tale for these confounding times. With the Central Park Reservoir as his canvas, Duchovny paints a protagonist as quixotic as he is unreliable (or is he). I had no idea where this story was headed, but I was down for the ride on every page."
--T Cooper, author of Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes

Author Bio

David Duchovny is an award-winning actor, writer, director, New York Times best-selling author, and singer-songwriter. With an acting career spanning more than three decades, Duchovny is a two-time Golden Globe winner and four-time Emmy nominee. He is the author of four previous novels: Truly Like Lightning, Holy Cow, Bucky F*cking Dent, and Miss Subways. As a musician, Duchovny has released three studio albums, Hell or Highwater, Every Third Thought, and Gestureland.