Un roman kaléidoscope où un personnage incarne toutes les figures du destin protéiforme que le monde et l'Amérique des années 1950 furent susceptibles de proposer à l'individu, de l'enfance à l'entrée dans l'âge adulte. Tout en restant fidèle aux obsessions littéraires qui sont les siennes, Paul Auster, avec cet ample et ambitieux roman, renouvelle et détourne brillamment le genre du roman initiatique en le confrontant à l'Histoire du XXe siècle.

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A grief-stricken man's obsession with the mysterious life of a silent film star takes him on a strange and intense journey into a shadow-world of lies, illusions and unexpected love . . .

Six months after losing his wife and two young sons in a plane 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 lost film by Hector Mann, and finds himself enraptured. Mann was a comic genius of the silent cinema, his trademark a fluttering black moustache. One January morning in 1929, at the height of his fame, he walked out of his house and was never heard from again.

Zimmer's fascination with Mann's work leads him to write an appreciative book. Then out of nowhere comes a letter from New Mexico, supposedly written by Mann's wife. Could Hector Mann be still alive? Zimmer is torn between doubt and belief, until a strange woman appears on his doorstep one night and makes the decision for him, changing his life for ever.

Written with breathtaking urgency and precision, 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. The Book of Illusions is Paul Auster's richest, most emotionally charged novel yet.

The Book of Illusions

Vivre le meilleur des choses à Brooklyn, être amoureux à soixante ans comme à trente, se marier, retrouver les siens, échapper aux sectes, marcher sous le ciel bleu à 8 heures du matin, s'enflammer pour Henry David Thoreau et Edgar Allan Poe. Etre heureux, encore, mais pour combien de temps en Amérique ?...

Brooklyn Follies

New york trilogy

Contraint à l'immobilité par un accident de voiture, August Brill, critique littéraire à la retraite, s'est installé dans le Vermont chez sa fille Miriam, qui ne se remet pas de son divorce, et sa petite-fille, Katya, anéantie par la mort en Irak d'un jeune homme avec qui elle venait de rompre. Insomniaque, Brill se réfugie dans des fictions diverses pour tuer le temps. Une nuit, il met en scène une Amérique parallèle, sans 11 Septembre ni Irak, mais en proie à une impitoyable guerre civile. Tandis que les heures passent, imagination et réalité en viennent peu à peu à s'interpénétrer, comme pour interroger la responsabilité de l'individu vis-à-vis de sa propre existence et de l'Histoire.

Seul dans le noir

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 wife's recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughter's boyfriend, Titus - by telling himself stories. This novel celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a brutal world.

Man in the Dark

One man's obsession with the mysterious life of a silent film star takes him on a journey into a shadow-world of lies, illusions, and unexpected love. After losing his wife and young sons in a plane crash, Vermont professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours mired in grief. Then, watching television one night, he stumbles upon a lost film by silent comedian Hector Mann, and remembers how to laugh . . . 

Mann was a comic genius, in trademark white suit and fluttering black moustache. But one morning in 1929 he walked out of his house and was never heard from again. Zimmer's obsession with Mann drives him to publish a study of his work; whereupon he receives a letter postmarked New Mexico, supposedly written by Mann's wife, and inviting him to visit the great Mann himself. Can Hector Mann be alive? Zimmer cannot decide - until a strange woman appears on his doorstep and makes the decision for him, changing his life forever.

Written with breath-taking urgency and precision, 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

THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS

An old man sits in a room, with a single door and window, a bed, a desk and a chair. Each day he awakes with no memory, unsure of whether or not he is locked into the room. Attached to the few objects around him are one-word, hand-written labels, and on the desk is a series of vaguely familiar black-and-white photographs and four piles of paper.

Travels in the Scriptorium

Charts the author's moral, political and intellectual journey as he inches his way toward adulthood through the post-war fifties and into the turbulent 1960s.

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