Englischsprachige Literatur

Pessl Marisha

Night film

Random House, New York 2013

Galbraith3

Marisha Pessl´s fame as the glamourous newcomer to the literary world has faded a bit and it took her some time to write this, her latest novel.

She obviously planned it to be just as erudite, weirdly fascinating as “Calamity Physics”, only this time she wanted us not to profit from her immense reading cosmos, but to show off her likewise expertise in the history of films, specially the film noir.

Scott McGrath, an investigative journalist in Manhattan, tries to find out the truth about the supposed suicide of Ashley Cordova, the beautiful young daughter of the reclusive and mysterious film maker Stanislas Cordova. Ashley´s former lover Hopper and a young girl from the country, who wants to make a career in acting, help him with his investigations.

Pessl stages dazzling fireworks of characters and places, but what remains is more or less literary debris. And how can Pessl, a master in quotes, forget to quote the author, she rather shamelessly copies here: Theodore Roszak´s  “Flicker”.