The Vanishing Point
A Novel
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- €9.99
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- €9.99
Publisher Description
From the author of the "wrenching and exhilarating" All Things Cease to Appear comes a gripping literary thriller about a man reckoning with the mysterious death of his former roommate (Wall Street Journal).
Julian Ladd and Rye Adler cross paths as photography students in the exclusive Brodsky Workshop. When Rye needs a roommate, Julian moves in, and a quiet, compulsive envy takes root, assuring, at least in his own mind, that he will never achieve Rye’s certain success. Both men are fascinated with their beautiful and talented classmate, Magda, whose captivating images of her Polish neighborhood set her apart, and each will come to know her intimately – a woman neither can possess and only one can love.
Twenty years later, long after their paths diverge, Rye is at the top of his field, famous for his photographs of celebrities and far removed from the downtrodden and disenfranchised subjects who’d secured his reputation as the eye of his generation. When Magda reenters his life, asking for help only he can give, Rye finds himself in a broken landscape of street people and addicts, forcing him to reckon with the artist he once was, until his search for a missing boy becomes his own desperate fight to survive.
Months later, when Julian discovers Rye’s obituary, the paper makes it sound like a suicide. Despite himself, Julian attends the funeral, where there is no casket and no body. This sudden reentry into a world he thought he left behind forces Julian to question not only Rye’s death, but the very foundations of his life.
In this eerie and evocative novel, Elizabeth Brundage establishes herself as one of the premiere authors of literary fiction at work today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this dark-toned mystery, Brundage (All Things Cease to Appear) develops an engrossing story about a love triangle involving three photographers. As the novel begins, famous photographer Rye Adler has presumably died, thought to have jumped off a bridge, though his body hasn't been recovered. His former art school roommate Julian Ladd attends the funeral and reflects on the days when the two were "nearly feral with ambition." Rye's photographs teemed with people, whereas Julian's urban landscapes were eerily empty: "It's not what's there that matters. It's about everything that's not." They both were drawn to their classmate Magda Pasternak, who had an affair with Rye before he achieved international success. Twenty years later, Magda, now a wedding photographer, contacts Rye to help find her missing son, and after he agrees, Rye goes missing. Meanwhile, Julian deals with divorce proceedings. The first half of the novel brilliantly dissects the competitive and erotic entanglements that mark the characters, and Brundage is particularly good at using photographic theory to describe how each sees the world. Some of the nuance diminishes in the second half, as the mystery about how everyone is connected comes into focus and the characters flatten out. Still, the portrait has enough depth to hold the reader's gaze.
