No Exit Press - Flicker by Theodore Roszak

ABOUT THE BOOK

Jonathan Gates doesn't set out to uncover the secret history of the movies – a tale of intrigue, deception and death that stretches back to the fourteenth century...and beyond. He simply loves going to the Classic, a legendary little art house cinema in West L.A. and there he falls under the spell of film critic, Clare Swann, who becomes his mentor and lover. And there he succumbs to what will be a lifelong obsession with the mysterious Max Castle, a nearly forgotten genius of the silent screen who later became the greatest film noir director...only to vanish in the 1940s, at the height of his powers.

Now twenty years later as Gates seeks the truth behind Castle's disappearance, the innocent entertainments of his youth – the sexy sirens, the screwball comedies, the high romance – take on a sinister appearance. His tortured quest takes him from Hollywood's Poverty Row into the shadowy lore of ancient Cathar and Templar religious heresies. He encounters a cast of exotic characters, including Orson Welles and John Huston, who teach him that there's more to film than meets the eye. And he journeys through the dark side of nostalgia, where the Three Stooges and Shirley Temple join forces with an alien god whose purposes are anything other than entertainment.

From the golden age of art movies and underground cinema to X-rated porn and splatter films and midnight movies, Flicker, is a breathtaking tour de force of cinematic fact and fantasy, a thriller and a metaphysical mystery that will haunt the dreams of every moviegoer. After you follow Jonathan into the void on the far side of the silver screen, you will learn why movies have such a powerful, hypnotic hold over us. And you will wonder whether Flicker is really fiction...or an eerie revelation of a truth beyond reason.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'Flicker, originally published in 1991, appears a succulent dish for the paranoid fiction gourmand'
- Chris Power, The Times [read the full review]

'Tantalising and scary as a Stephen King novel, Flicker has the power to fill even the most casual filmgoer with an awful, creeping dread. An epic meditation on the potential evil lurking within movies'
- Brett Easton Ellis

'A truly scary piece of paranoid fiction.'
- Washington Post

'Darkly thrilling tale for lovers of arthouse cinema...and medieval history!'
- Brian Case, Uncut Magazine [read the full review]

'A quirky, sexy, sprawling novel that combines a magical mystery tour of the history of cinema, an acid satire on Hollywood and what passes for today's cultural avant-garde, a metaphysical puzzle, an exploration of the psychological impact of films and a parable about the modern spiritual wasteland.'
- Publishers Weekly

'Important and so much better than good, this should be read for its wild imaginings and troubling embedded truths.'
- Robin Wallace-Crabbe, The Australian [read the full review]

'As if Umberto Eco had collaborated with Kenneth Anger to write an alternate Hollywood history'
- Crime Time