A thrilling exploration of psychological disturbance and fear from the bestselling and prize-winning author of Measuring the World. *Now a major film starring Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried* On retreat in the wintry Alps with his family, a writer is optimistic about completing the sequel to his breakthrough film. Nothing to disturb him except the wind whispering around their glassy house. The perfect place to focus. Intruding on that peace of mind, the demands of his four-year-old daughter splinter open long-simmering arguments with his wife. I love her , he writes in the notebook intended for his script. Why do we fight all the time? Guilt and expectation strain at his concentration, and strain, too, at the walls of the house. They warp under his watch; at night, looking through the window, he sees impossible reflections on the snow outside. Then the words start to appear in his notebook; the words he didn't write. Familiar and forbidding by turns, this is an electrifying experiment in form by one of Europe's boldest writers. The ordinary struggles of a marriage transform, in Kehlmann's hands, into a twisted fable that stays darkly in the mind.

From the internationally best-selling author Daniel Kehlmann, a provocative and wickedly funny novel about two unpredictable menone an artist and the other a journalist, who together embark on an unexpected adventure with uproarious results. Sebastian Zollner's failure as a journalist is matched only by his personal failures: his girlfriend is moving in a new lover before Sebastian even knows he's been dumped. Searching for the break that will redeem him in the eyes of his peers, he heads off on a wild goose chase into the mountains to interview the eccentric, legendary painter Manuel Kaminski, with the hope of writing his biography. Kaminski is going blind and is living in seclusion with his daughter. He could be working on his next masterpiece or easing into his final days, and his inconsistent career raises the question of whether he has been a fraud or a genius. His artistic reputation hinges on any number of factors but most prominently on a definitive biography. Enter Zollnerwho has no intention of writing a puff piece. He's out to dig dirt and to force Kaminski to confront the legacy of his work. But the secrets he uncovers will lead Kaminski, and Zollner himself, to places neither of them ever expected to go. With edgy wit and intelligence, Daniel Kehlmann dives into the problems of what is "truth" in our celebrity-crazed times and embraces the energy and humanity that lie beneath the pretensions of the art and journalistic worlds. A firecracker of a novel. From the Hardcover edition.