Night Film: A Novel

In 2006, Marisha Pessl's fantastic debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, was released, and it hooked me completely. For years I eagerly anticipated her follow-up novel, and finally, seven years later, Night Film was released, to great fanfare in the literary world. Was it worth the wait? Hell, yes. I finished the book last night and I still cannot get it out of my mind. Stanislas Cordova is a famous avant-garde movie director. Known for exposing the horror that lies beneath everyday situations, for manipulating emotions and inflicting psychological terror on his audiences, his films are beloved, reviled, and studied by film scholars worldwide. When the plot of one of Cordova's films is mirrored by an actual murderer, the public tide starts to turn against him, so his films become underground events, "night films," only shown in secret locations known to rabid fans. Cordova's genius is celebrated yet the director, a notorious control freak and recluse, holes himself up in a heavily protected compound in upstate New York, where all of his films are made. Those actors and technicians that have worked with him refuse to talk about their experiences, or have disappeared for new lives in places unknown. There are rumors of the occult, of unspeakable acts being committed against children on Cordova's compound. Is he a twisted mastermind or a malevolent villain? Celebrated investigative journalist Scott McGrath once tangled with Cordova, calling him out on a late night talk show. It destroyed McGrath's career, left him with much less money, and ended his marriage and many professional relationships. So when Cordova's daughter, Ashley, a gifted musician who apparently had more than her own share of demons, is found dead after an alleged suicide attempt, the logical thing for McGrath to do is to let it go, right? But McGrath believes there is a story behind Ashley's death, and her troubled life, and he is determined to uncover it, in the hopes that the trail may lead him back to Cordova himself. Along with Hopper and Nora, two young people with their own connections to Ashley, McGrath begins digging deeper and deeper into what happened to Ashley. What they discover is that there are no easy answers to these questions, and everything they find out moves them closer to and further away from the truth, while placing their lives in danger. And the quest for answers takes McGrath into the horrors of his own mind. This is an ambitious book, more than 600 pages in length, with fake newspaper and magazine articles, webpages, and photos sprinkled throughout to bolster the story. It is truly a thrill ride that leaves you breathless; I found myself wanting to see some of Cordova's movies after hearing them and his craft described so reverently. And while the book spent more time delving into the paranormal than I would have liked, the way that thread was tied up made the time worthwhile. You find yourself wondering just exactly what happened to those who worked with Cordova, or whether McGrath was telling the story the way he heard it, manipulating the facts to fit his own purposes. Pessl did a fantastic job unraveling the plot piece by piece, and while I found myself needing to reread the last 50 or so pages to be sure I understood how things concluded, I felt tremendously satisfied although slightly out of breath, as if I had raced to the story's end. This isn't a book for everyone but it is so well-written, so well-told, that I hope it finds an audience willing to be teased, willing to think, and willing to get utterly hooked. Wow.

Scott McGrath can't let it go. When news breaks that Cordova's daughter Ashley has committed suicide, Scott must find out why. It may be the answer to his fall from grace all those years ago, when he first started investigating Cordova, the recluse film director. It may be his answer back to the top. It may be darker than he ever imagined. Throw in a pair of amateur detective side kicks and Scott is doing more than investigating the "suicide". He's babysitting two kids who have more to do with Ashley Cordova than he first thought. But as they dive deeper and deeper into the director's legacy, what is real blurs into Cordova's films. Fiction is too close to reality and who says it can't be replicated in real life? I loved Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. It still is one of my favorite books. So I had high expectations for Night Film. The dark, eerie tone of the book starts off from page one, thrown into this seemingly real world where Cordova's name is feared and revered in the same sentence. The name is bigger than the man, his power unlimited as he explores evil of the human condition in his films and directing. There is tons of Cordova world building, which I love. There's a biography of Cordova, interactive media, "research" pages, synopses of films and actors. The book fully submersed me into the world of Cordova, his films, his mysteries and most of all, his crazy fans. His fans are crazy. They are crazy pants. Have you seen any crazy pills? No? It's because Cordova's fans have eaten them all! The general malicious and dangerous feeling of the book wrapped around my heart, allowing me to only digest the book in small segments. (It took me quite a long time to read it because I was hanging on every word.) And that is something amazing. Cordova, who is merely a ghost through the book, is one of the biggest characters through the story, silently lurking in the shadows. His fans and his films are equally large characters, making the evils of the world faceless strangers weaving in and out of Scott's investigation. These were my favorite parts of the book- Cordova's life, the speculation, the world. I fully believed in this place, this alternate world. Scott, our investigator, is not a favorite. He's selfish, stubborn and only set on one thing- investigating Cordova to find out the truth. He blames his failings on the director and if he could just find out about Ashley and in turn, Cordova's secrets... The characters in Cordova's world are super creepy and interesting. I really loved how the plot twists again and again going from reality to fiction, never knowing what should be believed. There's black magic, death, illness, mysterious items and sacrifices. There's everything and maybe all of it is true and maybe none of it is true. That's part of the beauty of the book- how Pessl rolls them together until no one knows what is possible. The writing is stellar and awesome. There were only a couple of things that bothered me. First off- everyone is eager to talk to Scott. In fact, as far as investigative detectives go, he's pretty lucky. Even when they are told NOT to talk to them, characters can't seem to come out of the woods and secretly hold meetings for him with hidden information, baring their soul and how they knew Ashley Cordova. I found this to be a little bit unbelievable because Cordova's entire world is about secrecy and yet, every place they went, they found someone who was willing to talk to them. Mental hospital security tight? Don't worry- a red headed nurse will run after your car and give you a lead. Security Guard can't talk? Not to fret! He will meet you in the woods outside his house later on. And so forth. Also, I was a bit disappointed in the characters at the end. There wasn't a lot of self reflection, learning, redemption. I liked the plot ending, and the closing scene. That made my day, but Scott's journey was shallow and I still didn't like him by the time I closed the book. I usually need to like the main characters in order to love the book, but Night Film is filled with so much more, it didn't hinder my reading experience at all. Overall, a wonderful book to be read as the weather gets cold and the days get dark

When I first began reading this book, I was enthralled. The mystery behind Ashley Cordova, and the wounded reporter who was obsessed with her father all intrigued me. Where would it end? How would it lead? What would happened? Each day I read new pages, I was so excited. I expected to be riveted and to have my socks "knocked off". *****Possible Spoilers ahead - Please be careful when reading!***** However, this is really NOT what happened. As I got to like chapter 100 (I read the Kindle version), I was just...well...kind of bored. So many things had already irked me in this book. WHY would a hardened reporter, who had been burned before, team up with two kids? I realized he may have needed them for the search, but the cozy friendship he developed with two of them was just illogical. Reporters, by their very nature, are solitary in their campaigns. They generally do not offer shelter to someone helping them out, and they DEFINITELY do not put up with 20 something dudes who are constantly passing out and are unreliable. It really seemed forced, and the chemistry did not appear to be there. When I made it through a large part of the book, I just noticed the story started to backslide to some degree. The motley crew (reporter plus two kids) make their way to the Peak, and then they go through so much. The initial visit itself really did not seem to be very well told, and many of the elements within this visit did not make sense. What did this visit mean? What did they find there? What purpose did this have to the story? I felt like it took so much of the book's generally space that I felt it was just meandering...it really lost me. After that visit to the Peak, the book had me in a complete daze. What happened? Why am I suddenly so bored? I realize that Ashley had a real illness, and that made sense. However, the trip to South America was just...well...FORCED. Why was Cordova not introduced early on? Why were readers not allowed even a glimpse into his actual head...where we could actually "hear" what he said? I know Cordova was a mystery, and the book itself was trying to emulate that. I suppose this is what I found most irksome. I wanted it to be a bystander that told us the story...from all angles...I did not feel it should have been simply an extension of Cordova. All in all, I enjoyed this book, but I was heartily disappointed by many of the elements. The ending was just abrupt and unsatisfying. I do not need to be granted an easy resolution, but I felt too much time was spent on the beginning and middle of the book, but not enough time was spent on explaining EXACTLY what Ashley's motives were, or what Cordova had in his head.

** spoiler alert ** I am stumped for a way to write this review spoiler-free while describing what’s so amazing about this book, so I won’t. Be forewarned there are a few vague details best left uncovered while reading. I finished NIGHT FILM late last week and have been trying to decide how exactly I feel about this book as a whole—the prose, the length, the addition of multi-media—since. On the one hand, I’m thinking this is a solid four-and-a-half star read. Not quite paced to perfection. A couple of times (particularly during Scott’s exploration of Cordova’s Adirondack estate) I felt the prose was too slow, a tad overwritten, but THEN (and this happens several times during this book) the plot twists and I’m drawn right back in to what feels maybe like the best thing I’ve ever read. Ten stars! I will be thinking on this one for some time to come. Why? For one, I love the characters. Disgraced journalist and quasi-failure dad Scott McGrath is a man who has lost everything after taking a public jab at Cordova. He is kind of a wreck, and had he not gotten a hand from Nora and Hopper I’m not sure he’d have ended up so far down the rabbit hole. Still, motives of self-preservation aside, his dedication to finding out what exactly happened to Ashley Cordova is admirable. Nora is nuanced and just this side of crazy in her transvestite’s wardrobe with her archaic bird, but she is so compellingly sweet that I rooted for her and Scott to make a go of things the entire time. Septimus added color to her (and what she did to get that bird back from a birdnapper was both terrible and proof of how far Nora would go to protect what she loves). Hopper turned out to be a loveable not-so-screw-up, and his and Ashley’s background is nothing short of star crossed. In a story about heartbreak, theirs might be the saddest plotline of all. Cordova is pure legend. This reclusive horror film maker’s story is as compelling as it is dark, disturbing, and beautiful. The head of a family who lives life on its own terms, consistently on the edge, I want to be Cordova. The love he had for his daughter, and the mystery about “what exactly he does to the children,” is shattering. Had he really believed he could trade one soul for another? The black magic component of NIGHT FILM had me utterly spellbound. In a book with so large a cast, never once was I confused about who was whom. Each player, large and small, has a past and present of their own with the victim—the brilliant, engaging, talented, and mysterious Ashley. Like father like daughter. I wanted so badly to believe in the supernatural story she spun versus what may (or may not have been) the truth about what happened to her. The Devil’s Bridge? Brilliant. In the end, much comes together but so much is left to interpretation. There’s a clear sense that the logical one isn’t the only answer. One of the best books I’ve read, I can’t, in good conscience, rate NIGHT FILM four stars for a couple plot drags in so long a book. Five stars. Highly recommended for folks who want to read something that makes them feel part of the investigation.

I have been waiting five years for another book by the promising, if not accomplished author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics. This earlier book by Marisha Pessl was so delightful in its use of language, its sense of humor and its understanding of teenage self-consciousness that I ranked it slightly above The Catcher in the Rye and sent a copy to my daughter, my sister and made it required summer reading for my high school-age niece. I could hardly wait to see what the maturing writer, Pessl, had in store for us in her long-awaited second novel. I began Nightfilm feeling disappointed. The verbal pyrotechnics of Calamity Physics were muted or absent. I thought that I was reading a second-rate mystery novel, which, as the pages unfolded, became more and more a supernatural thriller--not at all my genre-- and nearly persuading me that the author was trying to cash in on the current rage of vampire, werewolf and paranormal fiction. But as I continued, seduced by the frequent metaphors and allusions, which reminded me of the Pessl of Calamity Physics, and then by the character Nora, who might have been a slightly dumbed-down Blue van Meer grown a little older, I became involved in the intricacy of the plot. This was no novel whipped up in a single year devoted to capitalizing on current trends in fiction. Pessl had orchestrated a plot so complex that it was worthy of Dickens but without the boring background details. I found myself sliding toward the edge of my seat, becoming irritated at every interruption of my relentless page-turning, welcoming the hints of devil-worship and superhuman powers (which I have always abhored in fiction), waiting, always waiting to find out the truth behind the clues that the hero, Scott McGrath was gradually unearthing--or were they being fed to him in a systematic attempt to entice him down a doomed pathway? Nightfilm ends with a whimper not a bang, but I was not disappointed. I would have been appalled if I had had to swallow the mumbo-jumbo of the occult subplot as truth. But I was definitely hooked for the last half of the book. The facebook pages, emails, screenshots, etc. seemed gimmicky, although they each conveyed a great deal of information succinctly. But Pessl had brought me into the world of Stanislaus Cordova, the never-quite-there alter ego of the novel and it frightened me, fascinated me and kept me spellbound until I finished reading. I have a sense that Marisha Pessl was not content to simply move further toward the literary novel, which was oh so promised by Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Instead, she diverted sideways toward Stephen King, or perhaps Stephen King married to Raymond Chandler. The result was definitely successful, like Calamity Physics, a near tour-de-force, but holding more promise than it can quite deliver. My hope is that Ms. Pessl returns to the literary, although I applaud her courage in this venture. My prediction, however, is that she will try yet another genre next time, more intent on stretching her virtuosity than in perfecting it along one dimension. Romance, history, true crime... who know? At any rate, this book is worth reading. If the author were anyone else I would give it a five. But I was expecting something different from Marisha Pessl... not better, just different.

I was attracted to this book because I like stories about mysterious “dark films” that have fearful effects on both their participants and their viewers. (If you share this interest, I recommend Experimental Film by Gemma Files and Hard Light by Elizabeth Hand.) I held off buying it, however, because it was quite long (more than 600 pages) and yet didn’t seem suitable for Kindle (the usual answer to not wanting to carry around a thick book) because it was supposed to include photographs, screen shots and the like, and that sort of thing often doesn’t reproduce very clearly on Kindle. I can reassure readers that neither of these things proved to be a real problem: the pages turned quickly, and the non-text items were clear enough and added to the book’s feeling of realism, like the old photos in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. (They used up a number of those pages, too.) The story is a complex thriller, with layer after layer unraveling as middle-aged reporter Scott McGrath and two young sidekicks he acquires, Hopper and Nora, try to find out the truth about reclusive Stanislas Cordova, the maker of several films said to be so horrific that they have become almost impossible to find (and at the same time have acquired a fanatic cult following), and his daughter, beautiful young Ashley, who commits suicide (or does she?) early in the book. The films don’t play quite as great a role in the proceedings as I had expected, existing mostly as dark hints, though they move to center stage in a long section late in the book when McGrath finds himself inside the original film sets, which have been carefully preserved. In addition to these mysteries, the book has some interesting things to say about the human urge to create, or at least witness, personas that are “larger than life”—individuals who are not bound by the humdrum annoyances and limitations that hobble most of us, perhaps even partaking of the supernatural. Cordova and Ashley raise this creation to an art form, but essentially every character in the book is involved in it, either through inventing their own personas or through being attracted to those invented by others in the conscious or unconscious hope that a little of their “magic” will rub off. The writing is excellent, the pace fast, the suspense high, and the characters fascinating. The author does a fine job of balancing on the knife edge between reality and fantasy. The book is very good as entertainment, but it is also a powerful testimony to the human craving for more, even when that “more” takes forms that are terrifying.

I enjoyed the pace and plotting, mostly, and I’m a sucker for a good noir. That said, I felt that for all the intrigue and odd goings-on, while the ending does leave some room for some neat ambiguity, it’s also a serious whimper and feels tacked on. Mild spoilers ahead, but primarily vague and trivial complaints. Besides some unusual occurrences and twists that are causally dismissed and explained unsatisfactorily at the end, there are also weird details that took me out of the story at times. At the beginning of the novel, Scott, a disgraced journalist in his 40s, is jogging in Central Park at 2:00 a.m. after 4 scotches. I’m not saying no one does this, but I mean, it did make me wonder if Pessl is a straight-edger or something— it’s odd. Later, Scott has a scuffle with a drunken young man in a warehouse and finds drugs on him, surmising he’s a dealer. Sure, that’s reasonable— but then Scott looks at the unconscious dude’s face and *also* concludes the kid isn’t on any drugs, is just drunk, and… how the Hell would he know that? These are trifles, sure, but they irritated me as I progressed, otherwise engaged and wondering where the investigation would lead (up to the imo blahh conclusion, which is really why I can’t do a 3rd star for this one despite even with these trifles). The little detail that annoyed me the most, though… a character tells Scott of having only encountered Ashley, the woman whose tragic fate Scott and the novel are investigating, in an outdoors camping trip. This character at the time claims they never met since, but that she sent him a stuffed animal. While I may’ve missed a beat, I don’t believe the significance of stuffed animal is never explained— but what irks me is that this character says he knows it was Ashley that sent the monkey, even without a return address, *because it matches her handwriting.* This wouldn’t matter given that he could be showing a hole in his story, but what makes this baffling and frustrating to me as a reader is that Scott, the journalist, doesn’t so much as note this inconsistency. Night Film is unnervingly a page-turner I was all in on that rewarded me with a flat ending, that likely would’ve benefitted from another draft and an ending that doesn’t take the cheap route to *somewhat* explains the strange goings-on along the way. You could do worse than this book, it keeps you reading, but ultimately Night Film veers from reading like an expertly written occult thriller (think The Ninth Gate) to a university student’s first manuscript. Decent nighttime or commute reading though, for sure.

I bought this book because it was highly recommended by Joseph Fink, one of the authors of the podcast Welcome To Night Vale, surreal in its own right. I was not disappointed. Night Film may well be the best book I've ever read. It captures how anything is possible in the all encompassing mystery of night. I was so intrigued by the strange woman in the red coat in the first chapter, full of unexplained dark and impossible secrets, that I was annoyed by my slow reading and wanted to swallow the entire book right then and there. Marisha Pessl captures the beauty in the darkness beyond film noir. She explores the very edges of reality. The same edges the fictional elusive director Cordova explores in his films, which attracts an equally elusive cult following who seem to live in the films. Many years ago I was walking home from a movie theatre, back when independent films and theatres still existed. I saw flashing blue lights. No sirens. No hurry. A terrible dread of wrongness. As I passed by, I saw two prone bodies in the street, covered from head to toe in white sheets that flashed blue in the night. Seeing death up close, so unexpected, was of course horribly upsetting. Yet there was a certain quiet beauty to the scene; it spoke of unknown and tragic possibilities. Night Film could have been written to describe that memory. It envelops the reader in a strange, uncertain and darkly compelling world that I didn't want to end. It's not an easy book to read. It's like a circular tree, with branches and smaller branches and twigs and dead leaves, all leading down different mysterious paths, all of which are tied up in the end. But they're tied with a loose knot and even though the unexplainable is eventually explained, it's not tied off neatly with a bow. Pessl manages to leave us satisfied, but still full of the resonance of the constantly changing line between reality and not reality. This is a dark book, as the name implies. It's also a brilliant book, similar to the night films describes, hints at, twists, and eventually ends with the closing credits. Were it one of its night films, I would sit in the theatre long after the credits finished, unable to leave until an employee kicked me out. If I was really lucky, the employee would ignore me and I'd watch the film again and again.

I had heard so much about this book that I knew I had to read it and have a personal copy to treasure and that is the reason why I waited for its paperback to be available at its right price like a devoted Christian waiting for the return of Christ and the wait turned out to be well paid and that too in double fold for not only the story was gripping from the first page but the whole layout of the book is spectacular .For me personally, the book is a piece of artwork. I love how the story is narrated through visuals and in a very intriguing fashion, making it so exciting and spicy. In my opinion if you wish to read the book then do so in paperback so that you can experience the whole collaboration of graphics and text giving you a hair raiser narration. What I felt unique about the whole book and concept is that how it helps us to be part of investigation. With all the documents and papers given in its graphical forms the author actually gives us the feel that it is us, the readers who are actually investigating the whole story which according to me is brilliant and clever way to indulge the readers The book is a gradual growth yet very powerful to stir your brain matters. At the same time it is also a long one and tests your patience and concentration but to be frank the nature and treatment of the book is completely new and in fact in simple terms is "weirdly good" and it kept sending me into state of awe and creepiness simultaneously Do you know how long is this book ? 700 pages.... !!!! Did you hear? 700 looooong pages and I m not even sure that bible runs this long ..... But am I complaining ? Of course I m ? I would not read my school texts because they had 100 Pages to it. But given a second chance would I do this again? HELL YA!!! Because it is haunting... Intriguing ... Intelligent .....crazy and a whole lot of other adjectives all basically saying that it was awesome The book was like a roller coaster ride that gave you all the thrills and chills in the initial phase but after sometimes, also started giving you headache and left your head spinning so bad that all you wanted was to get out of the ride. As after the initial excitement and flow the things were getting so twisted and creepy that I was gasping for air and not necessarily in the best of way and there was a point where everything stopped making sense and started messing with my brain matter and I m pretty sure I have none left now.

When I read a book, and I'm completely engrossed in it, and am satisfied with the way it ends, I rate it on enjoyment. The experience I had while reading it. I gave it five stars, not because it's FLAWLESS, because it's not, but because I enjoyed ripping through this. I think that the book ended perfectly, with just enough detail, just enough story, character development, everything. It was perfect to me. Listening to some interviews with Marisha, you can tell she loved writing it. I did find it got a bit dull a bit after half way, but it picked up again, confused me, spun me around, and played on my expectations quite wonderfully. Marisha said that book could have two possible endings, and it's true. There is evidence for both of the endings throughout the book, so you choose what you want to believe. Which, in fact, is a theme of the book; Believe what you want, because everything is shrouded in mystery. Great read, read it in under 4 days -- while working every one of those days. Fantastic! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

A very addictive story. Loved it.

Ca valait le coup d'attendre; et j'aurai relu quelques fois le premier livre de Marisha Pessl en attendant! Un vrai chef d'oeuvre, très prenant, vraiment à lire de toute urgence!

Marisha Pessl has written a totally different novel this time. When you hold the book, it is heavy and the paper body is lanced with black lines - actually pages that are printed white on black. It intrigues you immediately and reminded me on negatives of pictures of the milky way where stars are not visible as little white pin heads against a black background but just the opposite, black points on a white universe. To me it looked like a set of orbits of planets and asteroids crossing the book. Without giving too much away the story goes like this at the beginning: Scott McGrath an investigative journalist and book author is informed by his layer of the suicide of Ashley Cordova, daughter of the famous but secretive film maker Stanislas Cordova. He is told to stay away from the case, because McGrath some years back, while collecting background information on Stan Cordova was supposedly trapped with incorrect information and had to pay 250 grand in a libel suit. In the wake of this carrier ruining affair his marriage broke up and McGrath does not have much of a life now. But as every true investigative journalist he cannot leave this opportunity go by. He starts investigating the suicide and teams up with two more or less unwanted assistants, Hopper and Nora, who are both loosely connected to Ashley. Hopper it seems a bit more than Nora, who just met her once. Step by step they try to piece together the last days and weeks of Ashley Cordova's life. This proves difficult as the Cordova family is powerful enough to effectively guard their interests and secrets. And theres seem to be a lot of secrets. Building up the characters abd setting the scene takes some time but after Chapter 50 the pace shifts and the book develops into a real page turner. So, good writing and fun to read. So much, that at the end, I was actually surprised that is was over and the only thing left were acknowledgements and image credits and some interesting instructions. Definitely 5 stars this time.