Night Film

A Novel

By: Marisha Pessl

Narrated by: Jake Weber

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A hair-raising mystery that’s equal parts family drama, horror movie, and jigsaw puzzle. . . . It’s impossible to look away.”— People (four stars)

“Maniacally clever . . . like an M.C. Escher nightmare about Edgar Allan Poe . . . You’ll miss your subway stop, let dinner burn, and start sleeping with the lights on.”—The Washington Post

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, Cosmopolitan, Kirkus Reviews, BookPage

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.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of interactive images from the book

A M A Z I N G

You will feel detached from reality off and on, and unable to tell what is real and what isn't. This is the brilliance of this writer--to keep you as off balance as the characters in the novel. No matter if you love the story or not, there is no question that Marisha Pessl is a superbly talented writer. I loved it.

The review by Linda does an excellent job of summing up the story without giving anything away. She wrote what I was feeling.

I will look up other works by this author as time goes by, hoping she comes up with another gem like this one. In the meantime, I plan on listening to this one again.

End it… Don't… No end it… No No… Don't… but… Ye...

This is good stuff!

On the down side, Pessi breaks out in rashes of over-writing… She also suffers in one scene from I-Need-An-Editor flu. But… but… Hollywood tells us that there are only what, 8 different stories? Well, I have no idea into which I'd drop this imagination explosion… These characters are so magnetic… I cared about them. Enough that the torrent of what at first seemed like epilogues pulled me into an entirely different experience. Yep, kept expecting an ending but…

Let's step out of the review here and talk about something unique to audio books. Unlike a hardbound on your lap, you're never spontaneously aware of how much more is to come. That's a good thing if you want the author to own surprise. Sooo back to the review.

Chapters began to end the story… then abruptly Jake Webber announced another… and another and… And it works. I'm convinced that Pessi's brilliance blended with Weber's talent will forgive almost everything.

Steven King once wrote like this, but he'd depend upon the gross-out to snap him away from trouble. Pessi keeps portending, but she has another solution. Not to worry, no spoiler alert here… Just another satisfaction with her startlingly complex talent.


I hope that next time Pessi will sand down some histrionics, and maybe disobey the rules and tell us rather than show every detail. Won't matter though… I'll preorder whatever she does next. Pessi's a resonant new psychological thrill pilot.

I didn't want this one to end!

This is one of those audio books that I hated to put down. In fact, when I was traveling and didn't have my iPod, I downloaded the e-book so I could read it on my laptop. It's that good. Haunting, beautiful, deadly. For days afterward I was still thinking about it.

I don't want to say too much because I don't want to give anything away. The characters are fascinating. If you like good, dark mysteries, you'll love this. And make sure you download the accompanying PDF - the pictures there add to the story. I LOVED this book!

Literary, this ain't. Psycho, yes. Thriller, no.

If the measure of literary fiction is abusing participial clauses and opting for the word "indicate" when "point (out)" would do just as well--both marks of stilted prose--then this would be literary fiction. The story also suffered from a very flimsy plot entirely grounded on a stalker of a protagonist (definitely not a hero) so paranoid and egocentric that he sees connections where they are none and who is ready to go to any length for the sake of a story that he has largely made up in his deranged mind (so it does delve deep into the psyche of the protagonist and as such qualifies as psychological fiction, I suppose). The title also needs far better character development to qualify as good fiction, literary or otherwise. Coyote's impressive vocabulary was completely at odds with her background and thick accent.
The only redeeming factor of this title was the narrator (who was so perfect as Mr. DuBois!). Had it not been for Mr. Weber's soothing voice, I could have never finished this overhyped mess of a story.

Whoa...

All I have to say is whoa...This has got to be one of the best books I have listened/ read in a long, long time. I can’t and won’t go into any details as others have posted reviews far superior to anything I can say, however, do your self a favor and spend the credit. You won’t be disappointed.