Man In The Dark: A Novel

A new novel with a dark political twist from ''one of America''s greats.''*Man in the Dark is 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 recovering from a car accident in 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 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.*Time Out (Chicago)

Paul Auster was born on February 3, 1947, in Newark, New Jersey. In addition to his career as a writer, Auster has been a census taker, tutor, merchant seaman, little-league baseball coach, and a telephone operator. After graduating from Columbia in 1970, he started his writing career as a translator. He soon gained popularity for the detective novels that make up his New York Trilogy. Auster's novel, "The Invention of Solitude," is a memoir exploring the relationship he had with his father. Auster has gradually shifted from mystery writing to science fiction. His other works include "Leviathan" and "Moon Palace." In addition to his novels, Auster has written screenplays and directed several films. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a French Prix Medicis for Foreign Literature.