The Exile
Hollywood star David Caspian finds himself falling through a crack in time into the back alleys of Hitler's Germany. The problem is he's not David Caspian any longer and the Gestapo is after him.
WHAT CRITICS ARE SAYING
“A psychological mind bender. Kotzwinkle allows the novel to build slowly until, in the last hundred pages, the book becomes glued to the reader’s hands as the devastating climactic scenes pile one on another. This reviewer suffered nightmares after reading the final pages, nightmares that were testimony to Kotzwinkle’s powerful writing.”
“Energetic... filled with intrigue, sex, torture, and Wagnerian brooding... Developed with great skill and wryness... enthralling...the comedy, despair, horror and technical storytelling delight make this an ambiguous, entertaining, unsettling performance.”
“William Kotzwinkle’s a minstrel of the written word, a sorcerer of language... He sustains the logic of his story to the final sentence without losing his momentum or resorting to cheap tricks. Readers will close “The Exile” with a smile, knowing they have witnessed an astonishing feat. They have just seen Kotzwinkle throw a high wire across an abyss, and then dance across it with effortless ease.”
“In this powerful book, part political part psychological, Kotzwinkle catches exactly the stench of the Nazi corpse-looters.”
“Too many authors these days use Nazi-ism as a lazy gimmick, a cheap and easy way of characterizing evil. Not Kotzwinkle. In The Exile you’ll laugh a lot — until you find yourself terrified with a fear too basic to have been created by a studio’s special effects department.”
“Spine chilling... a compelling read, a now-you-see-it/now-you-don’t experience of the world as this very inventive novelist perceives it.”
“Kotzwinkle’s delightful book seamlessly blends two genres: a sardonic, realistic Hollywood novel and an alluring psychological — or is it occult? — mystery. Kotzwinkle takes readers on a journey that is alternately comic and better still, deliciously creepy.”
“A Gothic melodrama dealing with the metaphysical problem of evil as concretized in the Nazi establishment. It ranges in space and time between America’s contemporary temple of success, Hollywood, and Hitler’s Berlin of four decades ago. Kotzwinkle has both a macabre power of invention and a countervailing gift of social comedy. Hugh Walpole wrote this kind of book but he never did better.”
“Whether he’s dealing with a fragmented personality or a tear in time, Kotzwinkle sets two wildly different worlds side-by-side and lets them resonate, catching the special ambience of each. A tantalizing novel.”
“To lose one’s mind is ghastly enough, but what if there’s someone else out there to find it and keep it? A rounded... picture of the social and professional life of Hollywood actors, writers, agents and executives... and the grimy cold of Berlin under siege... just before its fall in World War II... The invocation of both settings is rendered with a sensual immediacy. It’s the fine novelist’s gift and one of The Exile’s pleasures.”
“This is a marvelous novel, full of adventure and characters you will grow to know and admire. Kotzwinkle writes brilliantly. Any man who can describe the Sunset Strip as ‘the shooting gallery of the soul’ and talk about night as being ‘filled with things that night alone can teach’ is a writer to be admired.”
“When Kotzwinkle is the author, readers can be sure only that the book in question will be different from everything else. His work continues to be distinguished by its originality, wit and daring. As in other Kotzwinkle novels, black magic is involved — and the reader too falls under a strange spell.”
“When Kotzwinkle is good, he’s better than most authors writing today, and this is Kotzwinkle at his best.”
“The story is weird and creepy, and I might add enjoyable — because William Kotzwinkle is a great storyteller.”
“Kotzwinkle succeeds with an amazing power of imagination and a gift of storytelling, with a brilliant feeling for originality and a stunning shining wit. He draws the reader under his spell like a glittering Pied Piper and proves what a brilliantly inspired writing virtuoso he is.”
“The Exile is a joy to read.”
“Kotzwinkle shows a phenomenal knowledge of Germany.”
“The most sparkling American writer alive.”