In a Deep Blue Hour
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Mar 18, 2025
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- $10.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
A documentary filmmaker uncovers the secrets of an enigmatic author in this subtly enthralling novel from “one of Europe’s most exciting writers” (New York Times Book Review).
For days, documentary filmmaker Andrea and her team have been waiting for Richard Wechsler in his Swiss hometown. During their first shoots in Paris, the famous writer had not wanted to reveal much about himself, and now the whole film threatens to fail.
In the narrow streets and alleys of the village, Andrea searches for traces of Wechsler’s life, contrary to their agreement. But it is not until she starts reading his books again that she discovers a clue to a childhood sweetheart who might still be living there. An old love who influenced his whole life, but whom no one ever knew about.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Stamm (The Archive of Feelings) explores the entanglement between a documentarian and her cagey subject in this sly metafictional novel. The sardonic narrator, a self-described "pragmatic hedonist" named Andrea, struggles to make a documentary about Richard Wechsler, an elderly and enigmatic Swiss novelist living in Paris. She develops an intimate and at times adversarial relationship with her subject, who mistrusts such projects and eventually sabotages the film by refusing to participate. The failure effectively ends Andrea's career, rendering her "a filmmaker who doesn't make films." During the course of her research, however, she tracked down and befriended Wechsler's longtime lover and muse, Judith, a version of whom appears in all his books. After the two women spend several days going through Wechsler's possessions following his death from an illness, Andrea begins to spin her own fictions, imagining scenes from his life and the affair she never had with him: "I am Richard's inheritance, a character he didn't finish writing, left to wander in the limbo of unrealized novel figures." Stamm's earnest questions about the interplay between life and art and the value of biography are leavened by his caustic wit. Readers will be transfixed.
