Here in the Dark

Exciting new author: Alexis Soloski is the New York Times theatre critic and has written for the Guardian on theatre: she is the perfect author for this dark clever thriller starring a theatre critic

Alexis Soloski is a prize-winning New York Times theater critic and a former lead theater critic at the Village Voice. She has taught at Barnard College and at Columbia University, where she earned her PhD in Theater. She lives in Brooklyn with her family. Here in the Dark is her first novel.

Alexis Soloski's debut novel is an elegant, chilling read that examines the lives of critics, actors, and addicts. It poses the question: can you know or even have your own identity, when your entire life is spent acting? Recommended for lovers of New York and the theatre, this is a taut, beautifully written psychological thriller that dares to delve into the darkness behind the curtains
A moody, taut dose of noir, Here in the Dark is a poised, daring debut - the kind of novel I relish and can't get out of my head, evoking the work of icons like Megan Abbott and Margaret Millar in its hypnotic prose and mesmerizing characters. Readers will not forget Vivian Parry - and they won't want to
Soloski does not disappoint in either her sharp-eyed and unflinching portrait of an unravelling critic, or in her delicious upending of genre. Hitchcock meets a slippery metatheatrics of power, performance, desire, and escape. This is a novel and a protagonist who moves with a precarious velocity, constantly choosing the most dangerous move and bringing us careening after
Here in the Dark lives up to its title and is indeed a dark tale; it's also hilarious, addictive, elegantly constructed, and composed. It's ultimately a book about art and the love of art, but it's cleverly disguised as a thrill ride, a jolt of pulp and a shot of noir. It became a New York classic to me the minute I read the last sentence
From its very first page to its final revelation, Here in the Dark will possess you with a mix of acerbic wit and Highsmithian invention. I blazed through this book, delighting equally in the cleverness of its plot and the delicious wickedness of Vivian Parry - a woman you can't look away from even for a second. And why would you, when there's a life-or-death mystery, dialogue that feels beamed in from a classic noir, and a ballet about rabies on offer? Even if you've never seen a play, you'll be thrilled by the ways author Alexis Soloski takes the novel of suspense and turns it into a meditation on seeing and being seen, knowing and being known, judging and being judged