Gabriel Lake Recommends Marissa Pessl

 

And so we continue our Writers Recommend - a series where we ask writers to, well, you know.. recommend things. Like the books that they've enjoyed. To you. Because who doesn't like being recommended new and interesting books, right?! Think of it as a PSA. Only it's more like an LSA -Literary Service Announcement. 

Gabriel Lake Recommends Night Film By Marissa Pessl

In 2004, following a plane crash, a group of castaways found themselves lost on a mysterious island. Before they were stranded, they were also lost in their own lives. This newfound fight for survival is, in a strange way, a calling towards purpose. You are watching them. You find yourself enraptured, lost in mysteries, in theories, in the potential that you might be witnessing something truly special.

That’s how it was for me: a kid watching Lost. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen, both because it was innovative and because it was the first non-children’s television I’d engaged with. I’ve never forgotten the wonder which gripped me through every twist and reveal. JJ Abrams’ mystery box of storytelling – the idea that what could be is often more satisfying than what is – had me in a chokehold.

When the show ended, and I realized that it had not been an ornate puzzle box, but rather a cardboard one, I also never forgot that disappointment.

Since then, when I consume media, a part of me is always chasing the wonder and dreading the letdown.

Which is why, when I picked up Night Film by Marissa Pessl, it felt disconcerting.

The novel follows Scott McGrath, a reporter with a shaky reputation who’s taken an interest in the ‘Night Films.’ These movies, created by reclusive horror director Stanislas Cordova, are impossible to watch through normal means. Fed up with the Hollywood system, he built his own studio compound and produced the films in complete secrecy and independence. Their distribution is equally shrouded in mystery. To view one, you’d have to track down a midnight showing in the Paris catacombs or find your way onto a Darkweb video hosting site.

The films are party anecdotes. Oddities of a man with too much money and time. At least, they are until Cordova’s daughter winds up dead of an apparent suicide. Then the mysterious nature of the films becomes sinister. Everything becomes weird.

Very, very weird.

McGrath’s obsession mirrors your own as you pour deeper into the book, and it becomes increasingly clear that Pessl knows you’re nervous she won’t stick the landing. Soon, the search for them becomes about your own search. Your own interest in the book.

Because Night Film isn’t only interested in answers, but also in why we feel compelled to know. Why are we driven by curiosity in situations where it can only be detrimental? In the wake of tragedy, why is explaining that tragedy satisfying? It succeeds as both an engrossing mystery and a layered critique of itself.

The ending (don’t worry, I won’t spoil it) is unlike anything else I’ve read. Early on in Lost, the writers realized the greatest flaw of a mystery box: the fact that it has to be opened. Through that opening, it is destroyed, and so they adopted a workaround. Every mystery box would, through Tardissian physics, contain another, larger box.

This caused the stakes and mysteries to escalate until the point where (Spoilers for season 5 of Lost) our ragtag survivors are time travelers trying to create a paradox by detonating a nuclear bomb.

Night Film is keenly aware of this issue. Its characters are self-aware. They grapple with the knowledge that when each clue is revealed, they’re closer to a grand solution. As this search consumes their lives, the idea of answers becomes as terrifying as it is alluring. They know that the tangled web they’re following can’t go on forever. The knowledge they’re seeking will bring irrevocable change. Change which they might not be ready for.

Change which is also inevitable for you, the reader.

When I binged the last 200 pages and turned the final one, it left me with something truly new. I found that dogged, youthful obsession which I’d been chasing, but instead of being chased by disappointment, it had been accompanied by a sense of peace. The realization that I had not been watching a magic show but, in fact, a true wizard’s demonstration.

I think that’s a feeling everyone should experience.

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Gabriel Lake is a human who writes books.

Some info regarding The Grand Odessa: 

I DID IT

All of it. Everything you’ve heard and everything you haven’t. The most notorious drug ring in the Carolinas rose and fell with me. I survived the raid on the Blacksburg Estate. I’ve been an assassin, a bodyguard, a barber, a father, a shoulder to cry on and a reason to weep – whatever Dick Walker needed, really.

He was my boss, but he was more than that. We were more.

I’ve spent years running from the pain we caused. The pain we shared, too. My legs are tired, I’m exhausted, and it ain’t like I’ve got anywhere to run, if I’m honest. Few roads are open to a dying man.

But I’m offering to let you walk this one with me.

And when we reach the end, detective, I’ll tell you exactly what happened that night at the Grand Odessa.

***
The Grand Odessa is a standalone crime drama featuring a gay protagonist, an unconventional narrative style, and a web of complex, compelling characters.