"A gripping, sharply observed story - it's one heck of a read."
The Director is one of those rare novels that pulls you in from the first page and keeps tightening its grip in the most delicious way.
Reimagining the life of celebrated Weimar-era filmmaker G. W. Pabst during the rise of Nazism the book blends historical facts with fictional storytelling.
The story opens in Hollywood, where Pabst has fled Europe and tries to revive his career, only to struggle with creative conflict, artistic pressure, and a sense of alienation.
As war breaks out and Austria falls under Nazi control, Pabst returns home out of familial duty, trapping himself and his loved ones in a morally fraught environment.
Faced with impossible choices and mounting pressure from the regime, he reluctantly becomes complicit, accepting propaganda-film commissions from the Nazi film ministry to survive and protect his career.
What unfolds is a haunting exploration of the cost of artistic compromise: betrayals, moral corruption, fractured relationships, and the painful disintegration of ideals. It's a story about art, complicity, and survival under tyranny.
I was tense, curious, unsettled, and completely invested. The kind of book where you find yourself thinking about the characters long after you’ve put it down. Kaufman has crafted a clever, layered story with characters who feel real enough to recognise, and flawed enough to root for or recoil from, sometimes at the same time.
It’s a gripping, stylish, and propulsive story. One heck of a read.
| Primary Genre | Historical Fiction |
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From 'one of the brightest, most pleasure-giving writers at work today' (Jeffrey Eugenides), a visionary tale inspired by the life of the 20th century film director G.W. Pabst, who left Europe for Hollywood to resist the Nazis and then returned to his homeland with his wife and young son and began making films for the German Reich.
An artist's life, a pact with the devil, a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.
G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest, perhaps the greatest director of his era: when the Nazis seized power he was filming in France, to escape the horrors of the new Germany he flees to Hollywood. But under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, who he made famous, can help him. And thus, almost through no fault of his own, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. The returning family is confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. But Goebbels, the minister of propaganda in Berlin, wants the film genius, he won't take no for an answer and makes big promises. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement.
Daniel Kehlmann's novel about art and power, beauty and barbarism is a triumph. The Director shows what literature is capable of.
The Director features in the following genres: Star Books, Fiction in translation, General Fiction, Historical Fiction, Individual film directors, film-makers, Biographical fiction / autobiographical fiction, Fiction in translation, Historical Fiction
The Director is available in Paperback, Hardback
The Director was written by Daniel Kehlmann and published by riverrun an imprint of Quercus Publishing
The Director has 333 pages
£19.80
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