Night Film
By Marisha Pessl
Published on August 20th 2013
Published by Random House
Source: Purchased
Published by Random House
Source: Purchased
Chantaal's Review...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.
Night Film is a weird beast.
One part detective story, one part chillfest, it blends different genres with no problem at all - and that’s what I loved most about it, I think. Pessl so expertly blends the weirdness into the detective story that, even as the main character questions the supernatural events, it feels natural. And really, really creepy.
The mixed media aspect of the novel works well. Between website screenshots, newspaper articles and photos, the additional media worked well to help flesh out the world and characters without taking the place of the actual storytelling. You could easily read the novel without those aspects and it would still be great - you just wouldn’t have that extra in-depth look at the characters.
It’s tough writing much more of this review, simply because so much of the novel works in not knowing what’s coming. There aren’t any big scares in the images (except for one relatively innocent picture that creeped me out so much more than it should have), but so much of the novel’s power lies in following the main characters as the story unwinds to its conclusion.
And even as it ended and I turned off my Nook, I still wanted so much more.
