The Director

""[Daniel Kehlmann] is a surpassingly gifted storyteller. Among his big influences are the filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. Like them, he is a master at depicting decent people making terrible choices, with results that are both droll and catastrophic. An atmosphere of moral queasiness permeates The Director, and the author is in perfect control of the barometric pressure."" --David Segal, The New York Times ""Taut, unflinching...sharply observed...incisive, sweeping...arresting."" --Lauren LeBlanc, Boston Globe ""With The Director, the author pushes his affinity for reimagining dark historical moments into yet more provocative territory...nothing short of brilliant."" --Donna Rifkind, Wall Street Journal ""The Director is engrossing and luminous, an epic act of historical imagination and an intimate parable about moral compromise and the seductions of art. After Tyll, I wasn't sure how Kehlmann could possibly top himself. He has. This book is a marvel."" --Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies ""A freely imagined conjuring of the life and career of celebrated German-language film director G.W. Pabst by one of Germany's boldest contemporary novelists....The sheer wizardry and audacity of the storytelling...masterfully dances along the cusp of realism and surrealism, comedy and tragedy....An amazing performance by Kehlmann, who as a bonus immerses us in the filmmaking process. A wickedly entertaining, eye-opening book."" --Kirkus Reviews, starred review ""A wonderful book about complicity and the complicity of art. It's also funny, and brilliant."" --Zadie Smith, author of The Fraud, via the Ezra Klein Show ""An incomparably accomplished and inventive piece of fiction by one of the most intelligent novelists at work today."" --Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex ""Clear-eyed and propulsive...a searing look at the mechanics of complicity."" --Publishers Weekly (starred review) ""Daniel Kehlmann is shockingly brilliant, a writer of extraordinary range and grace. At times absurdist, at times horrifyingly realist, The Director asks where the moral duty of the artist resides, and how the narcissism of the artistic project can bleed into complicity."" --Lauren Groff, author of The Vaster Wilds ""Daniel Kehlmann, the finest German writer of his generation, takes on the life of the eminent film director G.W. Pabst to weave a tragicomic historical fantasia that stretches from Hollywood to Nazi Germany, from Garbo to Goebbels, to show how even a great artist can make, and be unmade by, moral compromises with evil. A dazzling performance and a real page turner."" --Salman Rushdie, author of Knife