Connecticut [TRADE PAPER ]

The third novel in David Thomson's series inspired by movie genres—an enchanting yet haunting celebration of screwball romantic comedies.

In 1985, with the acclaimedSuspects, and then in 1990 with the exhilaratingSilver Light, David Thomson delivered unprecedented fictions in which the characters were figures from film noir and the Western. Now a trilogy is completed withConnecticut.

Why Connecticut? Because that lovely, liberal state has been set aside as the resting place for every disturbed person in the nation! At first, this seems like an opportunity for meeting up with the merry ghosts of Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, William Powell and Margaret Sullavan. We get glimpses ofBringing Up Baby,My Man GodfreyandThe Lady Eve. But then the wild comedy darkens as we realize that Connecticut itself is on the edge of a demented and cruel war that challenges all its inmates to keep seeing the comic side of mishap and madness.

The trilogy is revealed not just as a set of dazzling stories. But a commentary on how far we have all been steered towards delightful but dangerous fantasies by the movies. Aren't we all screwball now? Is Connecticut safe to visit?"This is a work whose power is incremental, whose shadow-America is elaborated step by step. The closest comparison I can think of are the fabulations of Steve Erickson—also obsessed with Hollywood and the myths its country makes about itself.  .. .  If it only tells us about Hollywood and its dreams, that’s because they’re our dreams too." —Strange HorizonsonSuspects

"Adazzling work of narrative invention." —Village VoiceonSuspects

"IfThe Biographical Dictionary of Filmallows David Thomson to flex his scholarly muscles thenSuspectsprovides the English-born author a vlÓ|