Day for Night:A Novel

McNeil, Jean (2021) Day for Night:A Novel. ECW Press, Toronto. ISBN 978-1-77041-575-1

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Abstract

Set in the throes of Brexit-era London, Day for Night is an unflinching exploration of desire, gender, and history, in which a married filmmaking duo seeks to tell the tragic story of 1940s German Jewish intellectual Walter Benjamin, while their own relationship and nation are imploding behind the camera in real-time. Richard Cottar is a respected independent film writer and director; his wife, Joanna, is his increasingly successful and wealthy producer. Together they are about to embark on a film about the life of Walter Benjamin, the German Jewish intellectual who killed himself in northern Spain while on the run from the Nazis in 1940. In what looks set to be the last year of Britain’s membership of the European Union, Benjamin’s story of exile and statelessness is more relevant than ever. But Richard and Joanna’s symbiotic life takes a sudden turn when they cast an intelligent, sexually ambiguous young actor in the role of Walter Benjamin. In a climate of fear and a bizarre, superheated year redolent of sex and hidden desire, Richard and Joanna must confront their relationship, Benjamin’s tragic history, and the future of their country. Taking its cue from Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, Day for Night is an unsettling, riveting story of reversals — of gender, power, and history.

Item Type: Book
Uncontrolled Keywords: literary fiction
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Creative Writing Research Group
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Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 13 Jun 2022 16:30
Last Modified: 21 Mar 2023 09:35
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/85573
DOI:

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