Night Film
Marisha Pessl, 2013
Random House
640 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812979787
Summary
On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise.
As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.
For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.
Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.
The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.
Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1977
• Where—near Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Raised—Asheville, North Carolina
• Education—B.A., Barnard College (Columbia University)
• Currently—New York, New York
Marisha Pessl is an American writer best known for her debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, published in 2006. Her second novel, Night Film, came out in 2013.
Pessl was born in Clarkston, Michigan, to Klaus, an Austrian engineer for General Motors, and Anne, an American homemaker. Pessl's parents divorced when she was three, and she moved to Asheville, North Carolina with her mother and sister.
Pessl had an intellectually stimulating upbringing, recalling that her mother read "a fair chunk of the Western canon out loud" to her and her sister before bed, and entered her in lessons for riding, painting, jazz, and French. She started high school at the Asheville School, a private, co-educational boarding school, but graduated from Asheville High School in 1995. She attended Northwestern University for two years before transferring to Barnard College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English Literature.
After graduating, Pessl worked as a financial consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, while writing in her free time. After two failed attempts at novels, she began writing a third in 2001 about the relationship between a daughter and her controlling, charismatic father. She completed the novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, in 2004 and it was published in 2006 to "almost universally positive" reviews, translated into thirty languages, and eventually becoming a New York Times Best Seller.
Pessl's second novel, Night Film, a psychological literary thriller, was published in 2013 to mixed reviews. Janet Maslin of the New York Times suspected it "was more exciting to write than to read," while Kirkus referred to it as "an inventive—if brooding, strange and creepy—adventure in literary terror."
Pessl married Nic Caiano, a hedge fund manager, in 2003, and they lived in New York City. Pessl and Caiano divorced in 2009.
Pessl was also a contributing musician to The Pierces' third studio album, Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge, released in 2007. She is credited in the liner notes as having played the French horn on track 9 titled "The Power Of..." (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/18/2013.)
Book Reviews
There is a haunting suspicion running all through Night Film: that this book was more exciting to write than to read, and that Ms. Pessl reveled too contentedly in the universe she created. On the rare occasions when she calls attention to double meanings or bits of wordplay, they fall terribly flat.... But Night Film is content to deliver small, self-satisfied rewards. Ms. Pessl seems to take it as a given that this book, like its absent genius, warrants fascination. Where’s the evidence? Not on the page.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
No one can accuse Marisha Pessl of unfamiliarity with the tools of the modern thriller. With pages of faked-up old photos, invented Web sites and satellite maps, Night Film...asserts itself as a multimedia presentation more than an old-fashioned book. There are over a hundred chapters, most of the James Patterson two-page variety, a technique that adds a giddy accelerant to Pessl’s already zippy pacing.... Pessl is capable of fine prose, so her willingness to serve up “Hardy Boys” nuggets like these suggests she’s willfully dumbing herself down. Still and all, Night Film has been precision-engineered to be read at high velocity, and its energy would be the envy of any summer blockbuster. Your average writer of thrillers should lust for Pessl’s deft touch with character.
Joe Hill - New York Times Book Review
[T[wisted and intelligent.... The “night films” of Stanislas Cordova have a cult following: ...to see his work is to “leave your old self behind, walk through hell, and be reborn.” Ashley Cordova is his enigmatic daughter...[who] apparently commits suicide at 24. Scott McGrath is a reporter...can’t resist his need to uncover the real story of Ashley’s death.... Pessl does wonderful work giving the hard-headed Scott reason to question the cause of Ashley’s death, and readers will be torn between logic and magic.
Publishers Weekly
Expands from a seemingly straightforward mystery into a multifaceted, densely byzantine exploration of much larger issues.... Into this mazelike world of dead ends and false leads, [reporter Scott] McGrath ventures with his two, much younger helpers, Nora and Hopper, brilliantly portrayed Holmesian "irregulars" who may finally understand more about Ashley than their mentor, whose linear approach to fact finding might miss the point entirely.
Booklist
An inventive—if brooding, strange and creepy—adventure in literary terror.... Pessl hits the scary ground running....when [filmmaker Stanislas Cordova's] daughter is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in Chinatown. Scott McGrath, reporter on the way to being washed-up, finds cause for salvation of a kind in the poor young woman’s demise.... A touch too coyly postmodern at times, but a worthwhile entertainment all the same
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Professor Wolfgang Beckman accuses Scott of having “no respect for the murk. For the blackly unexplained. The un-nail downable.” How does Scott’s perspective on mystery and the “blackly unexplained” change over the course of the novel?
2. Nora asks Scott, “How much evidence do you need before you wonder if it just might be real?” Do you think Scott’s skepticism is a mark of pride, as well as rationality, as Nora suggests? Why does he wish to believe in the curse after his conversation with Inez Gallo? How ready were you to believe in the curse?
3. Scott is relentless in his pursuit of the truth about Cordova. How far would you have gone, in his situation? Is there a point at which you would have stopped pursuing the truth?
4. Cordova’s films were filled with such horror and violence that, in many cases, they were banned from theaters. What is your perspective on violence—its role and its effects—in movies today?
5. Cordova’s philosophy is in many ways antithetical to our modern world, where transparency, over-sharing and social media are the norm. Did you feel drawn to Cordova’s philosophy, or repelled, or both? Why?
6. Discuss how Scott advertently or inadvertently involved his daughter Samantha in his investigation. What did you think of the role she wound up playing, in his discovery?
7. How does your perception of Scott change, from the beginning to the end of the novel?
8. What did you think of the evolution of Nora and Scott’s relationship?
9. Both Scott and Nora reflect on the power of memory and story to alter the way we relate to our experiences. Scott says: “It was never the act itself but our own understanding of it that defeated us, over and over again.” Nora says: “The bad things that happen to you don’t have to mean anything at all.” Do you agree?
10. Beckman says “Every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart.” Consider Nora, Hopper, Ashley, Cordova, and Scott. What do their boxes contain, and in what ways do these secrets motivate them? Imprison them?
11. What do you think helped Hopper come to peace with Ashley’s memory?
12. New York City is just as much a character in the novel as any one person. How does your personal experience of, or relationship with, the city affect your reading?
13. How did the visual elements throughout the book enhance or impact your reading experience?
(Questions issued by publisher.)