An accident, a vanishing, a memory gap, a strange dream: a classic noir work of fiction by Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano
This uneasy, compelling novel begins with a nighttime accident on the streets of Paris. The unnamed narrator, a teenage boy, is hit by a car whose driver he vaguely recalls having met before. The mysterious ensuing events, involving a police van, a dose of ether, awakening in a strange hospital, and the disappearance of the woman driver, culminate in a packet being pressed into the boy's hand. It is an envelope stuffed full of bank notes. The confusion only deepens as the characters grow increasingly apprehensive; meanwhile, readers are held spellbound.
Modiano's low-key writing style, his preoccupation with memory and its untrustworthiness, and his deep concern with timeless moral questions have earned him an international audience of devoted readers. This beautifully rendered translation brings another of his finest works to an eagerly waiting English-language audience. Paris Nocturne has been named "a perfect book" by Liberation, while L'Express observes, "Paris Nocturne is cloaked in darkness, but it is a novel that is turned toward the light."
- ISBN10 0300218923
- ISBN13 9780300218923
- Publish Date 27 October 2015 (first published 29 July 2015)
- Publish Status Active
- Imprint Yale University Press
- Format eBook
- Pages 160
- Language English