One of the most sensational incidents in the history of France, the Dreyfus Affair was a landmark case involving treason and antisemitism. Here is a novel about tangential players far from the trial's main stage: petty forgers, cross-dressers and lovers, actors in an early silent film by Georges Méliès that documents the trial, and a film restorer who's trying to save that crumbling movie nearly a hundred years later — all of them caught in a web of intrigue, menace and betrayal that reaches through space and time.
"This erudite page-turner takes us from late 19th-century France to the film studios of the great Georges Méliès to the tribulations of a film restorer who finds herself caught up in political intrigue, a century after the famous Affaire Dreyfus. As in her celebrated L.C., she constructs a compelling dialogue with an earlier century that shifts our perspective on our own time." —Susan Bernofsky, author of Foreign Words
"It's Susan Daitch at her finest! A smart, absorbing study of those at the margins of history who, under her deft pen, turn out to be vital. Fascinating story, captivating writing." —Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution: The Year I Fell In Love and Went to Join the War and Vacation
Praise for Susan Daitch:
"It's always a delight to discover a voice as original as Susan Daitch's."—Salman Rushdie
Praise for Storytown:
"An important collection by one of the most intelligent and attentive writers at work in the U.S. today."—David Foster Wallace
"Startling in their intelligence and the breadth of their reimagining history the stories in Storytown are carefully detailed narratives that resist the comforts of traditional narrative devices."—James Surowiecki, Village Voice
"It should be read as much for its virtuosity as for its articulation of our moment in history."—Steve Tomasula, American Book Review
Praise for The Colorist:
"The Colorist should be read for Ms. Daitch's drop dead writing style and the pleasure of joining her literary shell game."—Kate Lynch, The New York Times
Praise for L.C.:
"Well worth reading for its ingenious interweaving of narrative threads, for its uncompromising treatment of sex and politics, and for the questions it raises about truth and deception in representing self and history."—LA Times
Opening Pages from Paper Conspiracies
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