Special Topics in Calamity Physics

An unforgettable debut novel that combines the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt and the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock: a darkly hilarious coming-of-age tale and a richly plotted suspense story, told with dazzling intelligence and wit.

Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics is an unforgettable debut novel that combines the storytelling gifts of Donna Tartt and the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock: a darkly hilarious coming-of-age tale and a richly plotted suspense story, told with dazzling intelligence and wit. 
 
'I wrote this account one year after I'd found Hannah Dead. 
 
I thought I'd managed to erase all traces of that night within myself. 
 
But I was wrong. 
 
Every night when I tried to sleep, I'd close my eyes and see her again, exactly as I found her, hanging from a pine tree by an orange electrical cord, her neck twisted like a tulip stem, her eyes seeing nothing. 
 
Or else that was the problem. They'd seen everything.' 
 
Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a mesmerizing debut. As teenager Blue van Meer tells her story we are hurled into a dizzying world of murder and butterflies, womanizing and wandering, American McCulture, The Western Canon, political radicalism and juvenile crushisms. Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class (with hand-drawn Visual Aids), Blue's wickedly funny yet poignant tale reveals how the imagination finds meaning in the most bewildering times, the ways people of all ages strive for connection, and how the darkest of secrets can set us free. 
 
'Beneath the foam of this exuberant debut is a dark, strong drink' Jonathan Franzen, author of, The Corrections 
 
'Any [Donna] Tartt fan disappointed that her second novel had little in common with her debut should rush out and buy this book immediately... It's a brilliant debut, guaranteed to join the ranks of The Secret History and The Virgin Suicides as one of those rare books to become a cult hit and instant classic' Sunday Telegraph 
 
'One of the most impressive debut novels I have ever read ... It stops you doing anything apart from reading it ' Independent on Sunday 
 
'Special Topics in Calamity Physics made me stay up all night reading; in the morning it seemed like one of those parties where everyone is too cool for you but you desperately want to know them anyway . . . I loved this book' Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife 
 
Marisha Pessl was born in 1977 and lives in New York. This is her first novel.

Beneath the foam of this exuberant debut is a dark, strong drink

Marisha Pessl was born in 1977 and lives in New York. This is her first novel.

'It had been almost a year since I&rsquo;d found Hannah dead, and I thought I&rsquo;d managed to erase all traces of that night within myself. I was wrong.' 
 
Special Topics in Calamity Physics is a mesmerizing debut. As teenager Blue van Meer tells her story we are hurled into a dizzying world of murder and butterflies, womanizing and wandering, American McCulture, the Western Canon, political radicalism and juvenile crushisms. Structured around a syllabus for a Great Works of Literature class (with hand-drawn Visual Aids), Blue&rsquo;s wickedly funny yet poignant tale reveals how the imagination finds meaning in the most bewildering times, the ways people of all ages strive for connection, and how the darkest of secrets can set us free.

Marisha Pessl

Deliciously spine-tingling... all-consuming and mind-altering. Nothing else matters while there are pages to turn and, once the book is over, the world seems an emptier place.

This month’s smartest (and creepiest) new novel is a hell of a read . . . An intensely writerly project that doesn’t jettison the reader . . . It explores how stories seep from texts into the world; not only in that it follows a journalist investigating a cult horror-film director whose life is entangled in his fictions, but also because the pages are peppered with fake news article and websites. A narrative signifying narratives, this novel echoes . . . The action bullet-trains through an artfully plotted world of secret screenings and suspicious deaths.

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.

When Cordova’s beautiful daughter is found dead in a warehouse, McGrath can’t help but pick up the trail. His pacy narrative voice is interrupted by magazine interviews, text messages, Facebook pages; a Cordova fan forum even pops up on the printed page . . . The result is multiple narratives that read like real life (or a more exciting version of it) . . . Night Film doesn’t cease to be with its last full stop. [Pessl] has developed a phone app and a website with extra material – a savvy move.

The real and the imaginary, life and art, are dizzyingly distorted not only in a Cordova night film – which a fictional Time article calls “a spellbinding and emotionally harrowing experience” – but in Pessl’s own Night Film as well. McGrath’s prologue opens with a dictum “Everyone has a Cordova story, whether they like it or not.” This book is ours.

Night Film is like a head-long fall into a dangerous film set, with the kind of eeriness that makes you jump at your own shadow.

Using mixed media, Pessl tell the tale of an eccentric, Kubrick-like film director and the mysterious deaths that litter his past.

Night Film is rich with arcane detail that ranges from obscure Hollywood history to the uses of occult herbs. It is also cleverly illustrated with plausible-looking articles about Cordova and his associates from Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and Wikipedia… this sprawling, generous, high-octane book remains as entertaining as a late night showing of a horror classic.

Intensely gripping . . . an entertaining read in the same league as Gone Girl

Beautifully imagined, beautifully written, and hypnotically suspenseful.

A testament to Marisha Pessl’s tremendous gifts as a storyteller.

This summer’s GONE GIRL: a completely absorbing literary thriller.

A literary mystery that’s also a page-turner . . . Night Film might be the most talked-about novel this summer.

This magnificently layered and suspenseful literary thriller by the author of Special Topics in Calamity Physics reads as though written by the fairy offspring of Siri Hustvedt and Paul Auster. You'll want to devote an entire weekend to losing yourself in the search for Cordova.

'THE BOOK EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT.' Observer 
 
On a damp October night the body of beautiful Ashley Cordova is discovered in a Manhattan warehouse. 
 
Though her death is ruled a suicide, investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. 
 
The last time McGrath got too close to the Cordova dynasty, he lost his marriage and his career. 
 
This time he could lose his mind.

Marisha Pessl

Praise for Night Film

Deliciously spine-tingling... all-consuming and mind-altering. Nothing else matters while there are pages to turn and, once the book is over, the world seems an emptier place.

This month’s smartest (and creepiest) new novel is a hell of a read . . . An intensely writerly project that doesn’t jettison the reader . . . It explores how stories seep from texts into the world; not only in that ...

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.

Deliciously spine-tingling... all-consuming and mind-altering. Nothing else matters while there are pages to turn and, once the book is over, the world seems an emptier place.

This month’s smartest (and creepiest) new novel is a hell of a read . . . An intensely writerly project that doesn’t jettison the reader . . . It explores how stories seep from texts into the world; not only in that ...

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.

Deliciously spine-tingling... all-consuming and mind-altering. Nothing else matters while there are pages to turn and, once the book is over, the world seems an emptier place.

This month’s smartest (and creepiest) new novel is a hell of a read . . . An intensely writerly project that doesn’t jettison the reader . . . It explores how stories seep from texts into the world; not only in that ...

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.

Books by Marisha Pessl

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