Doorstopper, over 500 pg written by a woman after 1950 for Read Harder 2020.

Okay. Night Film is great. I heard about it from a series of tweets that talked about the scariest books that haunt you after you're done reading. This reminded me of House of Leaves in a way, with a whole web of myth and spookiness.

Scott is a disgraced investigative journalist. His newest obsession is Stanislas Cordova, a cult underground film directors popularized by the 70s and his gory violence and dark themes. Cordova is willfully obscure and doesn't give interviews. His daughter is found dead at age 24 in NYC and Scott doesn't really buy that it was a suicide so he scoots off all over to see what could have made a piano virtuoso off herself. The story takes him all places geographically and socioeconomically. It's like House of Leaves in the sheer amount of footnote type material: interviews, newspaper clippings, loose thread leads he keeps following.

The whole book creates a foggy, spooky, dark, atmospheric underworld that Scott is compulsively pulled into. I stayed engaged almost the whole plot and found it be cinematic. Some scenes were trite and stupid enough for me to eye roll (Nora's last night, Scott deflecting his adoring fans' advances) but overall I loved the atmosphere Pessl created. I fell in deep! I heard it's being made into a movie but I think the book did a great job building a world from scratch. I would follow Scott on another wild goose chase, even if it was 700+ pages, again!

I also read this book with my partner and we spent hours talking about it. The ending, the parts of the plot that felt extra or to be red herrings (Oubliette?), or interpretations of what was reality and what was imaginary. There's a lot to unpack, dissect and you can definitely read it a few ways. I think if your book club liked horror, this would be an interesting discussion book after reading.