According to the AP, Auster’s latest novel can be described as: “An old man lies alone in the dark each night, hobbled by an auto accident and haunted by death. To fill the sleepless hours, he thinks up a story about a man who wakes up into an alternate America — one where there was no Sept. 11 and no Iraq War, but one where the controversial 2000 presidential election sparked a kind of blue-state/red-state civil war that has claimed millions of lives.”
The product description notes: “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.”
Yet the reviewer also had some complaints: “Some quibbles. The ending seemed a bit off, maybe because it's an outcome a lot of other writers would have come up with. And while "Man in the Dark" is a short book, it could have been shorter.”
The specific complaint the reviewer has is with the author’s five-page description of the Ozu film, Tokyo Story
Henry Holt is the publisher. Read the AP review here.
Your Talkback on this Story