Look at the Dark (Coleman Dowell British Literature) [Paperback]

Nicholas Mosley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2006 | Series: Coleman Dowell British Literature

A retired academic and writer is becoming a media celebrity of sorts, appearing on various talk shows to voice his controversial views on human nature and war. While in New York to make such an appearance, he becomes the victim of a hit-and-run--set up by the CIA? the FBI? terrorists?--and ends up confined to a hospital bed. This forced inactivity allows him to reflect on his life--the work he has done, the women he has known--as various people from his life gather around him, including both his first and second wives. Reminiscing about his past while dealing with his present, the man begins to see his provocative ideas about fidelity, sin, and grace play themselves out in a virtuosic way that could only be conceived by Nicholas Mosley.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mosley won the Whitbread Prize for Hopeful Monsters (1990) and has written 25 other works of fiction and nonfiction centering on philosophical quandaries, political instabilities and religious impasses. This time out, an unnamed retired Oxford professor of anthropology and cultural studies has becomes a talk show fixture thanks to his inflammatory rhetoric: "Of course suicide bombers are the most disliked sort of terrorists, because then there are no defendants from whom lawyers can get fat fees." Visiting New York City for a series of television appearances in the wake of 9/11, he gets hit by a car and, lying in a morphine-induced stupor, envisions the women of his life, including first wife Valerie; current wife Valentina; the one-legged African woman with whom he slept while on his honeymoon; and a young Iranian woman, Nadia, whose own complicated and nebulous history is entangled with his philosophies on fidelity, sin and grace. The resulting narrative has an apocalyptic feel, but Mosley's observations on the power and limitations of human communication are thought provoking (though parallels between the Tower of Babel and two other towers are overdone), and his acerbic narrator never quite gives up hope. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

Prolific British novelist Mosley brings his natty wit to a snappy episodic tale about a retired professor turned notorious jester in the court of public discourse until he is nearly killed while in New York for a television appearance. As he recovers with the help of both his first and second wives, and wonders why his unmarried son is adopting a baby, he attempts to sort out his memories about an African woman who lost a leg to a land mine, a young Iranian woman in need of sanctuary, a plucky girl on a bus, and a group of adventurous blind children at the zoo. Rife with erotic, political, metaphysical, and moral implications, his piquant musings unobtrusively explicate the tragedies of war, the divides between men and women and humans and animals, the threat of chaos, and the struggle to do right. Mosley's engaging stream-of-consciousness novel raises serious questions beneath the froth of its hilarious repartee, resulting in a tale brimming with compassion for flawed humankind and unabashed amazement at the unending strangeness of being. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press (February 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156478407X
• ISBN-13: 978-1564784070
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,044,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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