The Exile - by William Kotzwinkle (Paperback)

About the Book

Hollywood film star David Caspian has dissociative episodes in which he finds himself inhabiting the identity of Felix, a racketeer in Nazi Germany. David is convinced that these episodes are real, but his analyst says it's David's darker self manifesting. While David finds himself stepping into Felix's life, Felix has stepped into David's, and is giving a great performance in David's latest film.

Book Synopsis

In this "psychological mind bender," a Kafkaesque crisis of identity transports a famous actor from 1980s Hollywood to Nazi Germany (The Washington Post).

At forty-five, Hollywood film star David Caspian should be basking in his success. Instead, his career is souring as he stresses over the next generation of actors eager to replace him. Losing himself in waking fantasies, David slips through a crack in time, awakening in the back alleys of Hitler's Berlin. He is no longer David Caspian. He has become Felix, a ruthless black marketeer.

With the Gestapo closing in on him, David races against time--and space--as he fights to take control of Felix before Felix takes control of him. Witty, macabre, and utterly thrilling, The Exile is a mesmerizing novel that will leave readers wondering where reality ends and fiction begins.

People wrote that when William Kotzwinkle "is the author, readers can be sure only that the book in question will be different from everything else." But even among the award-winning author's work, this bracing satire stands out for the sweep of its vision, full of "comedy, despair, horror and technical storytelling delight" (The New York Times Book Review).

"The book becomes glued to the reader's hands as the devastating climactic scenes pile one on another. . . . Powerful writing." --The Washington Post Book World

About the Author

William Kotzwinkle is a novelist, children's writer, and screenwriter. He was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Kotzwinkle won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel for DOCTOR RAT in 1977, and he has also won the National Magazine Award for fiction.

Kotzwinkle wrote the novelization of the screenplay for E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) and also wrote an original follow-up novel E. T. THE BOOK OF THE GREEN PLANET )1985). Among his most popular titles are a series of children's books featuring the title character of the first book in the series, WALTER THE FARTING DOG (2001). To date, there are six titles in the series. Starting with the third book in the series, Kotzwinkle's wife, Elizabeth Gundy is listed a co-author on the titles.