Man In The Dark by Paul Auster *lots o spoilers*

August Brill, the main character, is recovering from a car accident in his daughter's home, Miriam. His granddaughter, Katya, is also staying there. Not only are the three characters linked through blood, but also pain through loss. August lost his wife to cancer, Miriam's husband left her for another woman, and Katya blames herself for the murder/execution of her ex-boyfriend. Depression city.

Katya, a film student, rents DVD's and watches them with August. They then analyze them, and I give much credit to Paul Auster here for making that scene in the book jump out. I want to watch what they watched, exactly how Katya describes it. Miriam consults her already published father on a piece she has been working on. Who does August turn to? Himself.

An insomniac, August keeps himself company each night by telling himself stories. One and the only one we are told in detail, is about an alternate world where September 11th never happened, but instead there is a civil war in America. We find out through Augusts fictional characters that he has been contemplating suicide. We are pulled out of it when his murderer/redeemer is killed. Katya comes into his room one night to talk and find out more about her grandmother. There we find out how and when August fell in love with Sonia, Miriam's mother, Katya's grandmother, Augusts wife. Circle! And this part, the Sonia era of the book is the saving grace. Almost. Katya falls asleep, birds begin to chirp as dawn approaches and Miriam enters the room. Breakfast time, Dad. Some we'll-get-through-this, life-goes-on speech and then the end.

There were some very heartfelt scenes, such as the Sonia parts, but I resented Augusts story for taking up so many pages from a very short 180, story. I would have preferred to have gotten to know Miriam more. Yes there was a "poetic" tie from Augusts real and fictional world, but I couldn't care less because it bored me. It just wasn't powerful enough to be relevant while reading it. I hate to make the comment, because this is the only work by Mr. Auster that I've read, but any reference to 9/11 is bound to be picked up by someone aka semi-instant hit. Again, yes, it was a crucial part to the story, and here's more spoilers, because Katya's ex-boyfriend, Titus is killed in Iraq. Not as a soldier, but a truck driver who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. And still, it's a detail that could have been replaced by something else. This family is the epitome of fail. Everything is collapsing around then it seems. There are also recollections out of nowhere to the Jewish Holocaust that felt absentmindedly thrown in. It just didn't make sense, it seems as if it was just a collection of stories that were started & just but in one very short book. Totes didn't like the book.

~Salinger