Man in the Dark

A Novel

Paul Auster

Picador

Download Image Paul Auster Man in the Dark
Buy it now

Available Formats

BookAudio BookeBook

A Washington Post Best Book of the Year

"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 a "literary original" (The Wall Street Journal) comes 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. 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.

 

Connect with the Author

Paul Auster

Official Sites

Related Links

Sign Up for
Author Updates

Macmillan Newsletter

Sign up to receive information about new books, author events, and special offers.

Sign up now

Book Excerpts

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness. Upstairs, my daughter and granddaughter are asleep in their bedrooms, each one alone as well, the forty-seven-year-old Miriam, my only child, who has slept alone for the past five years, and the twenty-three-year-old Katya, Miriam’s only child, who used to sleep with a young man named Titus Small, but Titus is dead now, and Katya sleeps alone with her broken heart.

Read the full excerpt

Listen to an Excerpt from the Audiobook

Loading the player ...

Related

Back

Media

Watch and Listen

Authors@Google: Paul Auster

The Authors@Google Program was pleased to welcome Paul Auster to Google's New York office to read from and discuss his new book, "Man in the Dark".

Share This

Man in the Dark by Paul Auster--Audiobook Excerpt

Listen to author Paul Auster read from his novel Man in the Dark in this audiobook excerpt. From a "literary original" (The Wall Street Journal) comes 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. Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident at his daughter's house in Vermont.

Share This
Back

Reviews

Praise for Man in the Dark

"Works beautifully . . . This is perhaps Auster's best book. Like Vonnegut's classic anti-war novel [Slaughterhouse Five], Auster's book leaves one with a depth of feeling much larger than might be expected from such a small and concise work of art."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Man in the Dark is at once haunting, thought-provoking, emotional, and compellingly readable."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Remarkable . . . Man in the Dark possesses a grand and generous heart."--The Boston Globe

"Auster's latest astute and mesmerizing metaphysical fiction . . . A master of the matter-of-factly fantastic, Auster tells an utterly authentic story of culpability and survival, the vortex of loss, and our endless struggle to translate terror into understanding."--Booklist (starred review)

"A novel that kept my attention from the first page all the way to the last. Frankly, it hypnotized me."--NPR's All Things Considered

"[Auster's] magic has never flourished more fully than it does in Man in the Dark. . . . The novel delivers intense reading pleasure from start to finish."--Orlando Sentinel

"Provoking and entertaining in brilliant fashion . . . [Auster] draws you into a literary maze and sets you marveling at how he will get you out."--The Seattle Times

"Intricately layered, playful with the notions of 'real' and 'unreal' . . . Man in the Dark is the work of a master, confident of his powers to move readers smoothly between worlds, totally in control of setting, pace, and dialogue. . . . A deep, fraught book."--Daily Kos

"Auster has crafted a stirring, politically charged portrait of the power of fiction."--The Star-Ledger (Newark)

Reviews from Goodreads

Back

About the Author

Paul Auster

PAUL AUSTER is the bestselling author of Travels in the Scriptorium, The Brooklyn Follies, and Oracle Night. I Thought My Father Was God, the NPR National Story Project anthology, which he edited, was a national bestseller. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Paul Auster

Lisbeth Salas Soto
Paul Auster

Official Sites

Related Links

Back

Reading Guide

Organizing a Reading Group

1

Get the Guide

Download PDF
2

Tell Your Friends

Share
3

Find More Books

Go to Website
4

Stay Updated

Sign Up
Back

Buy the Book

Available Formats and Book Details

Man in the Dark
A Novel
Paul Auster

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Picador
April 2009
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780312428518
ISBN10: 0312428510
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 192 pages
$14.00
Buy

Unabridged Compact Disc

Learn more about this edition
Unabridged Compact Disc
Macmillan Audio
August 2008
Unabridged Compact Disc
ISBN: 9781427205513
ISBN10: 1427205515
Audio Run Time: 4:30
$24.95

Unabridged Digital Audio

Learn more about this edition
Unabridged Digital Audio
Macmillan Audio
August 2008
Unabridged Digital Audio
ISBN: 9781427205520
ISBN10: 1427205523
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, Audio Run Time: 4:30
$12.95

Hardcover

Learn more about this edition
Hardcover
Henry Holt and Co.
August 2008
Hardcover
ISBN: 9780805088397
ISBN10: 0805088393
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 192 pages
$23.00

e-Book Agency

Learn more about this edition
e-Book Agency
Henry Holt and Co.
August 2008
e-Book Agency
ISBN: 9781429929776
ISBN10: 1429929774
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 192 pages
$9.99
Books for Courses Available
Back

From The Publisher

Picador

Latest on Facebook

Latest on Twitter

Back

{ About }

{ Services }

{ Store }

{ Publishers }

Education

Children's

© 2011 Macmillan