JUNE 2008
A review of
The Age Of Dreaming
by Nina Revoyr
Central question:
What would happen if Raymond Chandler wrote of murder and mayhem with tenderness and regret?
Format: Trade paperback;
Size: 5 ¼ " x 8 ¼ ";
Price: $15.95;
Publisher: Akashic Books;
Editors: Johnny Temple and Johanna Ingalls;
Print run: 15,000;
Book designer: Aaron Petrovich;
Cover designer: Jon Resh/Undaunted;
Typeface: Californian;
Real-life example of unabashed racism during novel’s time period: L.A. district attorney was also the head of the Anti-Asiatic Society;
Character of Jun based on: real-life silent-film star Sessue Hayakawa;
Representative sentence: “But I have always thought it was misguided to attach too much significance to something so fanciful and ephemeral as film.”
Nina Revoyr is a writer who distrusts words. In place of an epigraph, she bestows upon her novel a Nietzschean epitaph: That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. She celebrates silent films, eschewing “talkies.” She creates a protagonist, Jun Nakayama, who is rendered inarticulate at every emotional peak in his life: confronted with racism, oblivion, love, even joy, he says nothing much at all. Years later he excuses himself: “Words would have diminished what I felt.”
To read the rest of this piece, please purchase this issue of the Believer online or at your local bookseller.
—Darcie Dennigan
