Man in The Dark (Karton Kapak) (Paul Auster)

Man in The Dark (Karton Kapak) Paul Auster FABER AND FABER
Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident. Plagued by insomnia, he tries to push back thoughts of things he would prefer to forget – his wifes recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughters boyfriend, Titus – by telling himself stories. He 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. Brill gradually opens up to his granddaughter, recounting the story of his marriage and confronting the grim reality of Titus death. “Man in the Dark” is a novel of our time, a book that forces us to confront the blackness of night whilst also celebrating the existence of ordinary joys in a brutal world.