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    Man in the Dark: A Novel
    Man in the Dark: A Novel
    Man in the Dark: A Novel
    Ebook179 pages3 hours

    Man in the Dark: A Novel

    By Paul Auster

    3.5/5

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    A new novel with a dark political twist from "one of America's greats."*

    Man in the Dark is Paul Auster's brilliant, devastating novel about the many realities we inhabit as wars flame all around us.

    Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his daughter's house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would prefer to forget—his wife's recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughter's boyfriend, Titus. The retired book critic imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America the twin towers did not fall and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union and a bloody civil war ensued. As the night progresses, Brill's story grows increasingly intense, and what he is so desperately trying to avoid insists on being told. Joined in the early hours by his granddaughter, he gradually opens up to her and recounts the story of his marriage. After she falls asleep, he at last finds the courage to revisit the trauma of Titus's death.

    Passionate and shocking, Man in the Dark is a novel of our moment, a book that forces us to confront the blackness of night even as it celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a world capable of the most grotesque violence.

    *Time Out (Chicago)

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 19, 2008
    ISBN9781429929776
    Author

    Paul Auster

    Paul Auster is the bestselling author of Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, and Timbuktu. I Thought My Father Was God, the NPR National Story Project anthology, which he edited, was also a national bestseller. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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    Reviews for Man in the Dark

    3.5/5

    545 ratings47 reviews

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    • 2/5
      In which an invalid, elderly novelist fills us in on his life story, as well as sketching the framework of a novel which finds a man-in-the-street drafted as a paid assassin in the service of one side in a civil war which has broken out after the secession of blue states outraged by the administration of Bush 43. The protagonist's reminiscences are unbearably tedious, centering on such mind-numbers as where his second ex-wife was when race riots broke out in Newark during the sixties. At that, they're a welcome relief from when his windbag granddaughter, a wannabe film critic, appears and proceeds to explain at length seemingly every movie she's ever seen, in all cases movies which you probably haven't seen for a long time, or cared about, ever..As for the plotted part of the book, the part about the assassin and the civil war, it is not completely uninteresting, as it adumbrates a war zone America in the tradition of post-apocalyptic fiction, but even here the characters do far too much reminiscing, and babbling on about alternate realities and literary characters who want to kill their authors, which helps nothing. In any case, this story ends some fifty pages before the book does, leaving us with quite a slog through some further banal recollections. I finished this because of its brevity; there are worse books out there, but I don't believe I've ever read one straight through.
    • 3/5
      There are two sides to this book. What stands out and redeems Auster from too neatly wrapping up the "imagined yet real dream" plot line is the delicate way he reveals the grief and angst of him main characters. Unlike some of his other novels where his characters are mostly agents in a philosophical dilemma, which is usually still very interesting, the characters in Man In The Dark had more depth and nuance, especially the granddaughter Katya. Yet the alternate reality that the grandfather imagines resolved itself in a very unsatisfactory way. It was an interesting premise that I expected to eventually become the main story of the novel or that it would converge with the story of the family. Overall I was satisfied with the novel, but suspect it could have been something much greater. On a side note: if you enjoy Auster's novels check out his wife Siri Hustvedt's novel The Blindfold.
    • 2/5
      I am a big Paul Auster fan. I have read most of his novels. The New York Trilogy is an outstanding piece of literature. However, some of Auster's more recent work is very different. It lacks the the same quality. It seems that as Auster ages he feels that he needs to be more prolific and fit as many books as he possibly can in to his life. This has affected the quality of each novel. I still re-read some of his older books and search for the deeper layered meanings/messages within. However, I find that his most recent stories lack structure and as a result the books are forgettable. 'Man in the Dark' is one such novel. What happened to the man in the story who was charged with killing the Protagonist. He faded away like the man in the room in Oracle Night. We had two stories juxtaposing and one petered out as a damp squib. Why begin it if you can not tie it in nicely with the main story of the Man in the Dark with his daughter and Grand daughter. With a lot more thought this could have been a great book. However, like a lot of Auster's recent work, it was rushed. Quality will last a lot longer and be more appreciated than quantity.
    • 5/5
      An absolutely brilliant, streamlined, and powerful piece of fiction by Paul Auster. I really liked Music of Chance and thought this would be another interesting foray, but this really blew me away. This is great in what it manages to do and touches on so many different themes that it was impossible for me not to enjoy this fine work of fiction. Truly a great contemporary piece that sheds light on the darkness, and light, of the world.4.5 stars- fully earned.
    • 4/5
      This is another of Paul Auster's story within a story books (not that I'm complaining). It touches on 9/11 which touches me in that Auster is the first person I thought of when I heard about the attacks. He was my closest connection at the time. I thought of Loretta from The Sting (although she doesn't match the physical description)...she must be my go-to image of a waitress. lol
    • 5/5
      I felt the character was rambling at times, but now I understand why. He had every reason to ramble and was perhaps designed to be that way in this world of chaos
    • 1/5
      Organized chaos.
      August is an older man, living with his broken daughter who's getting over her divorce and his grand-daughter who is broken and blames herself for the horrid/grisley dealth of her ex-boyfriend. August is recovering from a car accident, laid up in bed and his writers mind keeps him occupied from his thoughts/mistakes in life by creating stories when he cannot fall asleep.

      A line in the book is used; it's a line from a poem written from Nathaniel Hawthorne's daughter Ruth -
      As the weird rolls on.

      It's more like, as the weird continues to write. This book was two stories in one that finally connect, but one ends so abruptly what was the point in including it except to fill pages and connect the fragments to the main character?
      There were parts of emotional growth, etc. but the book was too disjointed for my tastes and I didn't care for or have any compassion or any feeling at all for that matter for any of the characters in the book. Are we as humans truly as fragile and broken as the writer of the book portrays his characters? I hope not.
    • 2/5
      El libro en si tiene su gracia, tiene estilo y la prosa funciona perfectamente, però el argumento es tramposo y estafador. Una penita, porque estaba disfrutando mucho con la novela y por culpa del tercio final es muy decepcionante. Un chasco.
    • 3/5
      I've read all of Auster's novels and love his sensibility. This particular one is not his best; the plot is a little rocky, more of the seams show through than usual, but it had enough of his reflective musings about the stories we tell ourselves to keep me with him. Don't start with this one, but definitely read Auster.
    • 1/5
      One of the worst books I have read in recent memory. I would bet there haven't been five others I have at least attempted this past twelve months that have been worse than this sentimental fluff. How a writer as good as Paul Auster could have written something like this let alone have it published is beyond me. This book will do nothing but leave a bad mark on his memory and it did not have to be. Not everything we write is worth keeping. There is something delusional or greedy in the publication of this book. And the reviews that praise this novel a masterpiece? Oh my. What fools are in our midst. As soon as I get home next month I will list this P.O.S. on amazon.com and hope another fool like me (who hasn't yet read my own review) purchases it.
    • 3/5
      It might very well grow into a four-star once I've digested it. Two-thirds through I was pretty much ready to write it off as something wanting to be a Vonnegut piece but without the sting. The story (stories) seemed to lack purpose and an old mans ramblings seemed like just that, an old mans rambling. However in the final third it kind of came together and I caught on to something that might be summed up by the following quote:

      Why is life so horrible, Grandpa?
      Because it is, that's all. It just is

      So it goes.
    • 4/5
      This story turned out to be darker than I expected, and the initial structural conceits ended sooner than expected. But I'm still giving this a high rating simply because Paul Auster always creates novels that intrigue and entertain me. I'm lit-smitten, and there's not much I can do about it at this point. Suffice to say that this was an interesting and compelling short novel, but the later development went astray from my desires and expectations. So this is a three-and-a-half rating, but Auster gets rounded up to four stars, because he's written so many books that I absolutely adore. Still, be aware that I cringed in public at the painful revelation of the central tragedy that overshadows most of the action. If you're easily injured psychically, be on your guard.
    • 4/5
      This is intriguing in alot of ways and is quite true to experimental fiction form in the twisted sense that the main character is an author and his character comes to live in some sort of literary alternate universe where the real war waging isn't between the US and Iraq but between the red and blue states. The novel sort of loses that momentum though and speaks more about the intimate experience of getting older and reminiscing about the whole of your life and the ones you've lost. It's definitely not the best nor my favorite Paul Auster novel but it's ideal for someone who is an older reader and also has many memories that haunt.
    • 3/5
      Stories within stories, within stories. In my head, Auster is similar to Cory Doctorow in that they both have a bunch of good ideas and cram them all into one book. I guess it works, and it's good, and yet doesn't light my world on fire.
    • 3/5
      Aside from the strangely robotic/mathematical use of American idiom, this is the first Auster book I've enjoyed in quite awhile. Not a great book like City of Glass or Music of Chance, but solid. The secessionist civil war fantasy is definitely captivating. Reminded me of PK Dick ala Man in the High Castle.
    • 5/5
      Nur eine Nacht umfasst die Rahmenhandlung dieses Buches, doch die Geschichten die darin erzählt werden, würden locker für eine ganze Woche ausreichen.
      August Brill, 72jähriger verwitweter Literaturkritiker, lebt seit einem Unfall der ihn zum Krüppel machte, bei seiner geschiedenen Tochter Miriam, die ebenso unglücklich ist wie er. Zu den Beiden gesellt sich noch Augusts Enkelin Katya, Miriams Tochter, die sich die Schuld am Tod ihres Ex-Freundes gibt und deren Lebensenergie gerade noch dazu ausreicht, sich gemeinsam mit ihrem Großvater Filme anzuschauen. Wie in fast jeder Nacht kann Brill nicht schlafen und so beginnt er, sich eine Geschichte auszudenken um möglichen Erinnerungen (und ganz besonders einer bestimmten) aus dem Weg zu gehen. Owen Brick lebt mit seiner Frau ein normales kleines Leben bis er sich eines Morgens in einer Grube wiederfindet, gekleidet in eine Soldatenuniform. Nach und nach wird ihm klar, dass er sich in einer Parallelwelt befindet - aber noch immer in der gleichen Zeit und im gleichen Land. Dort herrscht ein Sezessionskrieg, der schon Tausende Menschen das Leben gekostet hat. Und Owen wurde dazu ausgewählt, diese Barbarei zu beenden. Doch dafür muss er einen Menschen töten...
      Wie schon erwähnt, ist dies nicht die einzige Geschichte des Buches. Brill schreckt immer wieder aus seiner Phantasie auf und verliert sich dann in Erinnerungen, in denen ebenfalls wieder Geschichten erzählt werden, die ohne weiteres die Grundlage für ein eigenes Buch sein könnten.
      Es sind traurige Erzählungen, die aber zumindest ein kleines bisschen Trost enthalten: die Frau deren Mann verschwand, sie aber immer liebte; der SS-Offizier der das junge Mädchen hoffnungslos liebte und ihr und ihrer Familie zur Flucht verhalf; Owen Brick, der ein Land von einem Krieg befreien soll - doch um welchen Preis? Und Brills Leben selbst, der sich nie verzeihen kann, was er seiner geliebten Sonja antat...
      Es ist das erste Buch von Auster, das ich gelesen habe und ich bin hin und weg. Nicht nur dass er gut erzählen kann, er ist auch in der Lage diesen an sich schon packenden Geschichten so viel Hintergründiges mitzugeben, dass man ständig zum Weiterdenken angeregt wird. Da führen die USA mal keinen Krieg gegen Dritte - und schon erheben sie die Waffen gegeneinander. Oder welche Aussagekraft Gegenstände in Filmen entwickeln können - beeindruckend. Soll ein Mensch einen anderen töten, um das Leben vieler anderer zu retten?
      Suchte ich nach einem Motto für dieses Buch, wäre es 'Das Leben ist enttäuschend...' - ein Satz der in einem der beschriebenen Filme fällt und vermutlich jeder der Personen in diesem Haus zugeschrieben werden könnte. Doch 'Und die wunderliche Welt dreht sich weiter' - ein Zitat von Rose Hawthorne, das am Ende des Buches auftaucht und (irgendwie allen) wieder Mut macht.
    • 3/5
      Man in the Dark is a short novel (180 pages) composed of one long chapter. I would categorize it as meta-fiction once removed or fictionalized meta-fiction (In this it reminds me of 2 novels I read last year: Queen of the Prisons of Greece, by Osman Lins and Diary of a Bad Year, by J.M. Coetzee). August Brill, the storyteller/ protagonist, is a 72 year old retired book critic and insomniac who lies awake at night telling himself stories while worrying about his 47 year old daughter Miriam and his 23 year old granddaughter Katya and while grieving for his dead wife Sonia.
      For the first 2/3 of the novel, the narrative switches back and forth between August's memories and musings and the story he invents to distract himself from the same. The protagonist of August's story is Owen Brick (a professional magician called the Great Zavello)who finds himself in a parallel world where he is a corporal in the Independents’ army. In this parallel world, 9/11 never happened and the U.S. never went to war against Iraq. Instead, America is caught up in its 4th year of a civil war between the Independents (16 states) and the Federals, with 13 million dead as of April 19, 2007.
      Unfortunately, August/ Auster abruptly ends the story of Owen Brick on page 118. From then on, the novel stays with August and his memories as he responds to Katya's demands to tell her about his marriage to her grandmother. Well and good, but this just isn't as interesting as the parallel worlds story (which itself is too convoluted to summarize here). Sigh!
      At its best, however, Man in the Dark lives up to what could be the epigraph of the memoir August never finishes or the collection of stories he never writes: the one line from Rose Hawthorne's poetry that the book critic in August admires: "As the weird world rolls on."
    • 1/5
      There is something primitive about Paul Auster. This primitiveness is lodged exactly where it should not be, in the fluency and ease of his storytelling. As reviewers always say, he is an inexhaustible source of stories, and in this book the stories never stop: there’s never any danger of slowing down; that is fitting because somehow slowing down feels like treacherous thing to do. What would happen if one story failed to succeed the last in a seamless sequence? Why should that seem like a problem? It feels that way, I think, because despite Auster’s themes—the book is about a widowed older man, his daughter who was abandoned by her husband, and the daughter’s daughter whose boyfriend died in Iraq—this is a book in which stories are used as distractions to avoid thinking more deeply. Auster is absolutely accomplished as a storyteller, and that theme (using stories to distract yourself) is built into the book. The principal character invents some stories of his own, to help him not to think about his family. That much Auster knows, and controls. He even has his principal character kill off the protagonist of his own invented story. But at another level, Auster doesn’t seem aware that all the stories in his book, and not just the ones invented by his narrator, serve the function of avoiding real introspection, real difficulty. As evidence of that I take the quality that binds all the stories in this novel together: the stories all run with a predictable, uninterrupted fluency. They are like driving by the scene of an accident: you slow up a little, but not enough to get involved. The story that the narrator invents in order not to think about his own past is itself as threadbare as they come (a post-apocalyptic fantasy, along the lines of any number of TV fantasy movies), but that doesn’t seem to bother either the narrator (who is supposedly a literary critic, and should really show some embarrassment at his own story), or the novelist (who is actually a prolific writer, and could easily have added a subtle sign that he didn’t find his narrator’s invented stories as entrancing as his narrator does). That is what I mean by “primitive”: the architecture of the postmodern novel is there, and there’s a clarity of structure and pacing that few novelists can match, but Auster seems relentlessly to misunderstand the function of narrative: it cannot only be a balm or distraction. Narrative has to break down or get itself in trouble, or falter, or question itself—not just the way a character might question the truth of a narrative, or its appropriateness, or its usefulness in distracting him—but the way a character might fail just telling a story, fail in the telling and not just in deciding whether to tell, the way this sentence is failing because I can’t quite get my thought about it right.There are a few moments in Man in the Dark when the flow of stories stop, but they are stage-managed to create a little shocks, or streams of tears: and that, too, is a kind of evasion, an easier sort of crisis, something not at all genuinely persistently moving. The surprise ending of the entire book is one such moment. Spoiler alert: I’m about to say what that surprise is. But note: books that can actually be spoiled by giving away their endings are trivial sorts of books like murder mysteries and detective stories. This book presents itself as literary fiction, and there shouldn’t be a spoiler in it. In this book the surprise is that the grand-daughter’s boyfriend was kidnapped in Iraq, and the family has seen his gruesome execution video on the internet.When I read that I groaned. Isn’t ordinary human suffering enough to create empathy and significance? Is it really necessary to tack on something spectacular, something topical and political, something garish and horrible? Doesn’t that sort of ornament just distract from what really counts—which is, in this case, that a person has died? The surprise ending is tremendously irritating, not for its politics, but because it functions just the way an elaborate murder does in Agatha Christie: it helps us not to think about what we are actually witnessing, a death. Readers of murder mysteries expect that kind of superficiality. Here, where there are literary ambitions, and where many pages are devoted to people’s feelings and thoughts, it is not just annoying: it is bewildering that a novelist could think such a surprise is sufficient, justified, necessary, sensible, or even expressive.
    • 4/5
      I can't even begin to take stock of my feelings after reading this novel, or explain why I gave it four stars. I would give it a fifth if I thought it was perfect, but I would like to read more of this author's work before I fall completely in love with him.Maybe it's the numerous story lines that intersect and meet so lovingly, but they are spun so delicate, the narrator treads gently and softly through them. Maybe it's the superbly human characters the author makes, who have mundane lives and are subject to all their human foibles and can still love so deeply and so honestly.Maybe it's the fact that I sniffled my way through the last few pages. The story was intense, gripping, much like the movie the narrator wanted to make at the end.Or (now I'm being silly) maybe it's the fact that every single one of the places mentioned in that book - New England/New Haven, Worcester, Vermont - is connected with the one person that I miss the most at this point and I'm just being hormonal. ;)Either way it was a wonderful read and I can't wait to read more of this author's work. reminded me of Camus, an author I love for many of the afore-mentioned qualities. I only hope that Auster's subsequent fiction is as delightfully delicate, yet captivating... muted in overt emotion, yet moving.
    • 5/5
      A short novel but masterfully told. Seventy-two year old August Brill has gone to live with his divorced daughter Miriam after the death of his beloved wife Sonia, and a car accident that left him crippled. Granddaughter Katya has also returned home after the horrific death of (ex) boyfriend Titus in Iran. This is not a happy household, and sleepless nights are the norm rather than the exception.A story about lofe, life, and loving. Sad and hopeful at the same time, rational and emotional, leaving you with the feeling that you really know these three people. I loved it.
    • 3/5
      I liked the concept of the book, but quit reading halfway through (for now) as I felt it wasn't getting anywhere and was a bit confusing at times. This one has two main story lines. Three out of five.
    • 5/5
      Why was I so moved by this Paul Auster novel? I started out thinking this is a rather distanced and constructed story, but as I read on the story of an old man reluctantly looking back on his mistakes it touched me more and more. The last part of the book is basically a conversation between two wounded people, the granddaughter and the grandfather, a real page turner. That can be said about the fiction-within-fiction story that the old man concocts as well. Auster writes better than most contemporary writers, and he handles so many genres, he never seizes to surprise and delight me. He was among my favorite writers before Man in the Dark, he is even more so now.
    • 5/5
      Reading Man in the Dark by Paul Auster was rather a coincidence. I don't really remember, but I think I picked up the author's name somewhere at the university. Not in a lecture but some place talking to other students.Anyway, the novel is fascinating. It is a story about August Brill, an insomniac, but then again, it is not. The story has two levels, parallel worlds one might call them. August Brill is a long retired literary critic making up stories because he cannot sleep. The first part of the novel relates one of those stories in a fragmented way. The second part of the novel relates the familiar background of August Brill.One can dive into deep in an analysis of this novel, but let me just say that the style reminds me a lot of postmodern narration. The reader encounters loose fragments in the beginning, the story does not give us closure. Having two parallel levels - insomniac narration or 'reality' - Auster plays nicely with focalization. When both levels mix up, become one, play with each other, the reader really can be tempted to question what is 'real'.There is just one thing left to tell you: Buy it, read it, love it! 4.5 stars.
    • 3/5
      Man in the Darkby Paul Auster A book in one night and two parts.August Brill (August is a bright month) is the main character of Man in the Dark. Affected by insomnia, he tells himself stories. In the first part of this book August invented a war inside Usa and a character, Owen Brick, who has to kill someone. The second part: August recounts to his grandaughter, Katya, the story of his marriage and after he rethinks the kidnapping and murder of Katya's boyfriend in Iraq. Auster, with August's help, wants to build a new world, a parallel world of bricks that lasts (Owen Brick = Oven brick). But this parallel world destroys itself because August falls in his world again, he needs to rethink his world first. In the first part we find Auster's stereotypes from other books, while in the second part Auster introduces the History that hits the men; maybe he is following a new path in his books. I prefer the first part, the Auster we all know; although 'As the weird world rolls on' (p. 180)' we could accept Auster's reflections about History.
    • 4/5
      Great Author, good book. I haven't read Paul Auster in so many years that I had forgotten just how much I like his writing. "Man in the Dark" was a happy reintroduction, providing lovely prose, depth of thought, labyrinthine twining of stories within stories, and refreshing clarity about the simple nature of the most complex feelings--one of the reviewers calls it clichéd another calls it boring. I think it's great.The story is about an old man who fights insomnia and invents stories to keep from thinking about his life and relationships. His latest story is about a civil war--things are so bad that he invents a character to kill the author, just to make it stop. As it turns out the old man's story doesn't keep him distracted at all--these things never do. Still, he makes it through the night. In the end it's all about his life and relationships.
    • 4/5
      This is a beautifully written novel centerd around the imagination and memories of August Brill. During one night of many nights of insomnia, the reader enter's the mind of August as he creates a story of a parallel America at war with itself as he tries to cope with his past and the struggles within his family.This is the first time I have read a novel by Paul Auster and I will be sure to read more.
    • 3/5
      I've read all of Auster's novels and love his sensibility. This particular one is not his best; the plot is a little rocky, more of the seams show through than usual, but it had enough of his reflective musings about the stories we tell ourselves to keep me with him. Don't start with this one, but definitely read Auster.
    • 4/5
      Unable to summarize the book, I will simply say that its transitions from the elderly narrator to the younger narrator are seamless, culminating in the end in a beautiful ending. I thought this novel was interesting, albeit a little strange.
    • 4/5
      Paul Auster's Man in the Dark turned out to be quite an interesting read with an unexpected ending. I enjoyed clear style and clever story telling. This was my first Auster novel and I am actually looking forward to reading more.
    • 4/5
      This is my first foray into the world of Paul Auster, and I must say it was a pleasant foray as foray’s go. Man in the Dark was written in that seemingly new wave popular “no quotation” style that takes a minute to get used to but then becomes somewhat pleasing to the eye as you go. I don’t know if there is a name for this style, because I am but a simpleton; must be the reason I am dwelling on the style of the book rather than its substance. Man in the dark is an interesting story within a story within a story. Auster has a wonderful talent for building strong and believable characters. He has mastered the show; don’t tell technique of character development and action. This book of a mere 180 pages, is chalk full of interesting little stories; maybe tidbits is a better descriptor about seemingly ordinary people. The main character is a man in his early seventies who is living with his daughter and granddaughter after a car accident has left him crippled. Each night he finds sleep as a mere desire rather than an actuality, so to pass the time he tells himself stories; so real and some fictional. It is a kind of one act, one set play where the main character examines his life and the lives of those who have touched him most deeply; especially his family. This is an excellent story; I can’t wait to read more of this author.

    Book preview

    Man in the Dark - Paul Auster

    I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness. Upstairs, my daughter and granddaughter are asleep in their bedrooms, each one alone as well, the forty-seven-year-old Miriam, my only child, who has slept alone for the past five years, and the twenty-three-year-old Katya, Miriam’s only child, who used to sleep with a young man named Titus Small, but Titus is dead now, and Katya sleeps alone with her broken heart.

    Bright light, then darkness. Sun pouring down from all corners of the sky, followed by the black of night, the silent stars, the wind stirring in the branches. Such is the routine. I have been living in this house for more than a year now, ever since they released me from the hospital. Miriam insisted that I come here, and at first it was just the two of us, along with a day nurse who looked after me when Miriam was off at work. Then, three months later, the roof fell in on Katya, and she dropped out of film school in New York and came home to live with her mother in Vermont.

    His parents named him after Rembrandt’s son, the little boy of the paintings, the golden-haired child in the red hat, the daydreaming pupil puzzling over his lessons, the little boy who turned into a young man ravaged by illness and who died in his twenties, just as Katya’s Titus did. It’s a doomed name, a name that should be banned from circulation forever. I think about Titus’s death often, the horrifying story of that death, the images of that death, the pulverizing consequences of that death on my grieving granddaughter, but I don’t want to go there now, I can’t go there now, I have to push it as far away from me as possible. The night is still young, and as I lie here in bed looking up into the darkness, a darkness so black that the ceiling is invisible, I begin to remember the story I started last night. That’s what I do when sleep refuses to come. I lie in bed and tell myself stories. They might not add up to much, but as long as I’m inside them, they prevent me from thinking about the things I would prefer to forget. Concentration can be a problem, however, and more often than not my mind eventually drifts away from the story I’m trying to tell to the things I don’t want to think about. There’s nothing to be done. I fail again and again, fail more often than I succeed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t give it my best effort.

    I put him in a hole. That felt like a good start, a promising way to get things going. Put a sleeping man in a hole, and then see what happens when he wakes up and tries to crawl out. I’m talking about a deep hole in the ground, nine or ten feet deep, dug in such a way as to form a perfect circle, with sheer inner walls of dense, tightly packed earth, so hard that the surfaces have the texture of baked clay, perhaps even glass. In other words, the man in the hole will be unable to extricate himself from the hole once he opens his eyes. Unless he is equipped with a set of mountaineering tools—a hammer and metal spikes, for example, or a rope to lasso a neighboring tree—but this man has no tools, and once he regains consciousness, he will quickly understand the nature of his predicament.

    And so it happens. The man comes to his senses and discovers that he is lying on his back, gazing up at a cloudless evening sky. His name is Owen Brick, and he has no idea how he has landed in this spot, no memory of having fallen into this cylindrical hole, which he estimates to be approximately twelve feet in diameter. He sits up. To his surprise, he is dressed in a soldier’s uniform made of rough, dun-colored wool. A cap is on his head, and a pair of sturdy, well-worn black leather boots are on his feet, laced above the ankles with a firm double knot. There are two military stripes on each sleeve of the jacket, indicating that the uniform belongs to someone with the rank of corporal. That person might be Owen Brick, but the man in the hole, whose name is Owen Brick, cannot recall having served in an army or fought in a war at any time in his life.

    For want of any other explanation, he assumes he has received a knock on the head and has temporarily lost his memory. When he puts his fingertips against his scalp and begins to search for bumps and gashes, however, he finds no traces of swelling, no cuts, no bruises, nothing to suggest that such an injury has occurred. What is it, then? Has he suffered some debilitating trauma that has blacked out large portions of his brain? Perhaps. But unless the memory of that trauma suddenly returns to him, he will have no way of knowing. After that, he begins to explore the possibility that he is asleep in his bed at home, trapped inside some supernaturally lucid dream, a dream so lifelike and intense that the boundary between dreaming and consciousness has all but melted away. If that is true, then he simply has to open his eyes, hop out of bed, and walk into the kitchen to prepare the morning coffee. But how can you open your eyes when they’re already open? He blinks a few times, childishly wondering if that won’t break the spell—but there is no spell to be broken, and the magic bed fails to materialize.

    A flock of starlings passes overhead, entering his field of vision for five or six seconds, and then vanishes into the twilight. Brick stands up to inspect his surroundings, and as he does so he becomes aware of an object bulging in the left front pocket of his trousers. It turns out to be a wallet, his wallet, and in addition to seventy-six dollars in American money, it contains a driver’s license issued by the state of New York to one Owen Brick, born June 12, 1977. This confirms what Brick already knows: that he is a man approaching thirty who lives in Jackson Heights, Queens. He also knows that he is married to a woman named Flora and that for the past seven years he has worked as a professional magician, performing mostly at children’s birthday parties around the city under the stage name of the Great Zavello. These facts only deepen the mystery. If he is so certain of who he is, then how did he wind up at the bottom of this hole, dressed in a corporal’s uniform no less, without papers or dog tags or a military ID card to prove his status as a soldier?

    It doesn’t take long for him to understand that escape is out of the question. The circular wall is too high, and when he kicks it with his boot in order to dent the surface and create some kind of foothold that would help him climb up, the only result is a sore big toe. Night is falling rapidly, and there is a chill in the air, a damp vernal chill worming itself into his body, and while Brick has begun to feel afraid, for the moment he is still more baffled than afraid. Nevertheless, he can’t stop himself from calling out for help. Until now, all has been quiet around him, suggesting that he is in some remote, unpopulated stretch of countryside, with no sounds other than an occasional bird cry and the rustling of the wind. As if on command, however, as if by some skewed logic of cause and effect, the moment he shouts the word HELP, artillery fire erupts in the distance, and the darkening sky lights up with streaking comets of destruction. Brick hears machine guns, exploding grenades, and under it all, no doubt miles away, a dull chorus of howling human voices. This is war, he realizes, and he is a soldier in that war, but with no weapon at his disposal, no way to defend himself against attack, and for the first time since waking up in the hole, he is well and truly afraid.

    The shooting goes on for more than an hour, then gradually dissipates into silence. Not long after that, Brick hears the faint sound of sirens, which he takes to mean that fire engines are rushing to buildings damaged during the assault. Then the sirens stop as well, and quiet descends on him once again. Cold and frightened as he is, Brick is also exhausted, and after pacing around the confines of his cylindrical jail until the stars appear in the sky, he stretches out on the ground and manages to fall asleep at last.

    Early the next morning, he is woken by a voice calling to him from the top of the hole. Brick looks up and sees the face of a man jutting over the rim, and since the face is all he can see, he assumes the man is lying flat on his stomach.

    Corporal, the man says. Corporal Brick, it’s time to get moving.

    Brick stands up, and now that his eyes are only three or four feet from the stranger’s face, he can see that the man is a swarthy, square-jawed fellow with a two-day stubble of beard and that he is wearing a military cap identical to the one on his own head. Before Brick can protest that much as he’d like to get moving, he’s in no position to do anything of the sort, the man’s face disappears.

    Don’t worry, he hears him say. We’ll have you out of there in no time.

    Some moments later, there follows the sound of a hammer or iron mallet pounding on a metal object, and because the sound becomes increasingly muted with each successive blow, Brick wonders if the man isn’t driving a stake into the ground. And if it’s a stake, then perhaps a length of rope will soon be attached to it, and with that rope Brick will be able to climb out of the hole. The clanging stops, another thirty or forty seconds go by, and then, just as he predicted, a rope drops down at his feet.

    Brick is a magician, not a bodybuilder, and even if climbing a yard or so of rope is not an inordinately strenuous task for a healthy man of thirty, he nevertheless has a good deal of trouble hoisting himself to the top. The wall is of no use to him, since the soles of his boots keep sliding off the smooth surface, and when he tries to clamp his boots onto the rope itself, he fails to gain a secure purchase, which means that he has to rely on the strength of his arms alone, and given that his are not muscular or powerful arms, and given that the rope is made of coarse material and therefore chafes his palms, this simple operation is turned into something of a battle. When he finally nears the rim and the other man takes hold of his right hand and pulls him onto level ground, Brick is both out of breath and disgusted with himself. After such a dismal performance, he is expecting to be mocked for his ineptitude, but by some miracle the man refrains from making any disparaging comments.

    As Brick struggles slowly to his feet, he notes that his rescuer’s uniform is the same as his, with the single exception that there are three stripes on the sleeves of his jacket, not two. The air is dense with fog, and he has difficulty making out where he is. Some isolated spot in the country, as he suspected, but the city or town that was under attack last night is nowhere to be seen. The only things he can distinguish with any clarity are the metal stake with the rope tied around it and a mud-splattered jeep parked about ten feet from the edge of the hole.

    Corporal, the man says, shaking Brick’s hand with a firm, enthusiastic grip. I’m Serge Tobak, your sergeant. Better known as Sarge Serge.

    Brick looks down at the man, who is a good six inches shorter than he is, and repeats the name in a low voice: Sarge Serge.

    I know, Tobak says. Very funny. But the name stuck, and there’s nothing I can do about it. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em, right?

    What am I doing here? Brick asks, trying to suppress the anguish in his voice.

    Get a grip on yourself, boy. You’re fighting a war. What did you think this was? A trip to Fun World?

    What war? Does that mean we’re in Iraq?

    Iraq? Who cares about Iraq?

    America’s fighting a war in Iraq. Everyone knows that.

    Fuck Iraq. This is America, and America is fighting America.

    What are you talking about?

    Civil war, Brick. Don’t you know anything? This is the fourth year. But now that you’ve turned up, it’s going to end soon. You’re the guy who’s going to make it

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