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Although film images are technically "illusions," this deft and layered novel is not so much about conscious illusion or trickery as about the traces we leave behind us: words, images, memories. Children are one obvious trace, but in this book, they are not allowed to carry their parents forward. They die early: Hector Mann losing his 3-year-old son to a bee sting just as David Zimmer has lost his two sons in the crash. The second half of The Book of Illusions is given over to a love affair, and to Zimmer's attempt to save something of Hector Mann, and of the others he has loved. In the end, what really survives of us on earth--what flickering immortality we are permitted--is left to the reader to surmise. --Regina Marler
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Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 12235631-n
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. 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. Written with breath-taking urgency and precision, this stunning novel plunges the reader into a universe in which the comic and the tragedy, the real and the imagined, the violent and the tender dissolve into one another. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780571276639
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780571276639
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780571276639
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. BRAND NEW ** SUPER FAST SHIPPING FROM UK WAREHOUSE ** 30 DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. Seller Inventory # 9780571276639-GDR
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 336 pages. 7.80x4.96x0.83 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0571276636
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Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 12235631-n
Book Description Condition: New. A novel, in which, 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. Num Pages: 336 pages. BIC Classification: FC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 156 x 197 x 22. Weight in Grams: 270. 2011. Main. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # 9780571276639
Book Description Condition: New. A novel, in which, 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. Num Pages: 336 pages. BIC Classification: FC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 156 x 197 x 22. Weight in Grams: 270. 2011. Main. Paperback. . . . . Seller Inventory # 9780571276639