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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.
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Previews available in: English
Subjects
Absence and presumption of death, Widowers, Literature, Biographers, Comedians, Fiction, Silent films, Aircraft accident victims' families, Missing persons, Large type books, Fiction, psychological, Widowers, fiction, Missing persons, fiction, American fiction (fictional works by one author), Motion picture industry, fictionEdition | Availability |
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The book of illusions: a novel
2003, Henry Holt and Co.
in English
- 1st Picador ed.
0312421818 9780312421816
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The Book of Illusions: A Novel
August 1, 2003, Picador
Paperback
in English
0312421818 9780312421816
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The book of illusions: a novel
2002, Henry Holt and Co.
in English
- 1st ed.
0805054081 9780805054088
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Book Details
Edition Notes
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Internet Archive item recordmarc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC record
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Better World Books record
Better World Books record
First Sentence
"EVERYONE THOUGHT HE was dead."
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Feedback?December 24, 2021 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
December 5, 2020 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
July 22, 2019 | Edited by MARC Bot | remove fake subjects |
July 21, 2017 | Edited by Mek | adding subject: In library |
December 9, 2009 | Created by WorkBot | add works page |