Man in the Dark

By Paul Auster

Book Overview

"Man in the Dark is an undoubted pleasure to read. Auster really does possess the wand of the enchanter." --Michael Dirda, The New York Review of Books

From Paul Auster, a "literary original" (Wall Street Journal) comes a novel 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.

Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident at his daughter's house in Vermont. 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 desperately trying to avoid insists on being told.

A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312428510
• ISBN13: 9780312428518
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A Fine Story, by a Master Storyteller

This is the first book I've ever listened to. Usually I listen to music when I'm in the car, but I got a chance to review this on audiobook and I was taking a road trip, so I decided to give this book a listen. It's read by the author, so I knew the reader would probably be sincere and do the book justice. He did. My first impression is that listening to a book is a lot different than reading it. Usually when I read I have...

This Book Moved Me

This story opens with retired newspaper critic August Brill lying in bed, unable to sleep. He is seventy-two years old, his wife, who he'd married, divorced, then married again, has been taken by cancer. He lives with his daughter Miriam and granddaughter Katya. Miriam is divorced, Katya's husband is dead and she's not over it, will probably never be over it. August and Katya spend their days away watching movies and August...

Stories within Stories, within Stories

This is a short book, only 192 pages. I purchased the book, then was offered the CD to review, which I was glad to get as it's read by the author. He's very good, by the way, both at writing and reading, listening to him I was pulled right into this story about an old man who lies awake at night in the dark. He's a haunted man, crippled by an auto accident, desolate because of the death of his wife. He makes up stories and...

A Short, Strange and Very Good Story

Seventy-two-year-old, ex-writer August Brill lies awake during the night, a victim of insomnia. He entertains himself by telling himself stories. He lives with his daughter and granddaughter in Vermont, his wife has recently passed away and he had a leg damaged in an auto accident. He seems depressed, who could blame him. One of the stories he's been telling himself is of a parallel world and he takes us right into it, makes...

A Thoughtful, Multi-Layered, and Multi-Generational Story of an American Family

August Brill is a man well into the August of his life, a widowered book critic nearly rendered unable to walk by a leg badly shattered in a recent automobile accident. Brill is passing the last of his days (and sleepless nights) with his foryish daughter Miriam and twentyish granddaughter Katya in Miriam's Vermont home. The two women's lives seem nearly as shattered as August's leg: Miriam abandoned by her husband, and Katya...