The Book of Illusions - by Paul Auster (Paperback)

About the Book

In this rich and emotionally charged work, a man's obsession with a silent film star sends him on a journey into a shadowy world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love.

Book Synopsis

From the internationally bestselling author of 4 3 2 1 and The New York Trilogy comes The Book of Illusions, "an enthralling new summit in Paul Auster's art." --Jonathan Lethem

A man's obsession with a silent-film star sends him on a journey into a shadow world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love.

Six months after losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a clip from a lost silent film by comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer's interest is piqued, and he soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to research a book on this mysterious figure, who vanished from sight in 1929 and has been presumed dead for sixty years.

When the book is published the following year, a letter turns up in Zimmer's mailbox bearing a return address from a small town in New Mexico-supposedly written by Hector's wife. "Hector has read your book and would like to meet you. Are you interested in paying us a visit?" Is the letter a hoax, or is Hector Mann still alive? Torn between doubt and belief, Zimmer hesitates, until one night a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever.

This stunning novel plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragic, the real and the imagined, the violent and the tender dissolve into one another.

Review Quotes

"A nearly flawless work . . . Auster will be remembered as one of the great writers of our time." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Mr. Auster's elegant, finely calibrated Book of Illusions is a haunting feat of intellectual gamesmanship." --The New York Times

"This noirish, layered tale will keep you guessing to the very end." --Time Out New York

"An enthralling new summit in Paul Auster's art." --Jonathan Lethem

About the Author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.