false 3136288 19 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 death 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. 3109595 2007 Man in the Dark total:845|5:99|4:308|3:321|2:95|1:22| 845 2902 1366 240 4 6 false false Tue Sep 23 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 23 05:40:44 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 23 05:47:37 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 7 false false Tue Jun 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 19 13:26:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jun 21 09:53:23 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Tue Aug 19 20:36:54 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 18 15:53:38 -0700 2008 come unstuck in time awakened in a hole in a battlefield in an alternate America. He's now been chosen as the assassin (after a fashion) of the man in the high castle responsible for imagining this war-torn America into existence. Along the way he meets a feisty waitress (blo...more...]]> 5 4 false false Thu Jul 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 11 07:28:21 -0700 2008 Fri Jul 11 07:28:21 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 4 false false Sun Apr 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 29 02:43:06 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 06 05:27:23 -0700 2009
I've never had a real issue with insomnia. Sure, there are those tension filled days that carry over and transmute into a jaw clenching, sheet wrass...more...]]> 4 4 false false Mon Sep 22 12:55:49 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 27 13:00:05 -0700 2008 Novela más que redonda, de facilísima lectura, dejando caer con ligeras sutilezas su posicionamiento frente a grandes temas (y sin querer hacer apostolado laico, lo que es de agradecer), reflexionando sobre el acto de la creación literaria como escape ...more...]]> 2 3 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 15:27:34 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 15:27:34 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu Oct 09 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 23 02:32:53 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 09 11:23:15 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 2 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 06:13:15 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 06:15:33 -0700 2008 Tom LeClair nailed my sense of the book, as far as I'd gotten in it:

"After, say, 10 books, maybe novelists should be retested, like accident-prone senior citizens renewing their driver’s licenses. Veterans of literary wars would anonymously submit a new manuscript to agents. Of â...more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Jan 28 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 02:40:12 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 04:19:03 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 22 08:50:20 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 01 20:55:14 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Tue Jul 29 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 13:20:39 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 12:48:49 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 27 23:07:43 -0700 2008 Sat Aug 16 14:16:39 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Sep 06 10:28:18 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 08 09:29:13 -0700 2008
With the twist you can expect from Auster, there is the surreal plotline of a ch...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Mar 27 22:34:49 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 27 22:47:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:59:17 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:59:17 -0800 2009 Reactions to Paul Auster's new novel may very well have come from alternate universes themselves. In one world, Auster is a great American man of letters writing a postmodern response to the events of our time, particularly 9/11, as only he can. In another world, his novel is yet another failed atte...

more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 10:53:37 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 11:14:15 -0800 2009
If August ...more...]]> 2 0 false true Tue Jan 20 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 21:41:21 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 23:34:45 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Fri Sep 12 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jan 05 14:18:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 14:21:19 -0800 2009 STOP SMILING review of Man in the Dark:

Such a Fearful Thing to Love What Death Can Touch: Paul Auster Waxes Mortal

Going back as far as his first novel City of Glass, the New York-based author Paul Auster has been known for his sublime intellectual play, his text-within-a...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Dec 20 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 20:41:40 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 22 20:53:25 -0800 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=5979488