This truly unique book is the second collaboration between celebrated writer Paul Auster and artist/printmaker Glenn Thomas and features a story within a story from Auster’s The Book of Illusions, called The Inner Life of Martin Frost.
Paul Auster’s novel The Book of Illusions explores the implications of stories within stories, especially as films. Battling with personal crises, Auster’s protagonist David Zimmer falls into the work of the fictional silent film star Hector Mann; The Inner Life of Martin Frost is a long-lost Mann film. The Inner Life of Martin Frost is also this book, which through Glenn Thomas’s innovative typography and drawings echoes the vertiginous plight of Zimmer as he becomes fascinated by this one particular film. Having worked on several films, including a 2007 revamped version of this story, visual cues fit well with Auster’s words, making this book an ideal addition to anyone interested in how words and imagery can work together to create new forms of understanding.
The book is produced with fold-out pages featuring Thomas’s prints and drawings joined with Auster’s text. Auster and Thomas first collaborated in 2002. Thomas showed Auster some of his work and suggested a graphic arts project that would combine an Auster text with a series of drawings. Auster approved and asked Thomas to choose one of his texts. A text was selected from The New York Trilogy - City of Glass, a very moving and intense section, which was called My mouth is tired now: The Peter Stillman Monologue. In December of 2003, a limited edition linen portfolio was printed that contained 8 two color silkscreen prints plus a colophon signed by them both. Auster and Thomas were so pleased with the results that they decided to do a second project, which is called The Inner Life of Martin Frost.
Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1947. Since 1974 he has published novels, poems, essays and translations. His newest novel Brooklyn Follies has been published first in a Dutch translation in the Netherlands by the Arbeiderspers.
Glenn Thomas, painter and print maker, was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1944. He has been living in the Netherlands since 1970 and has shown his work extensively through out Europe and the eastern United States. His work can be found in both public as well private collections.
Technical details:
Hard bound
36 pages inside; incl. 3 pages with fold-out and 4 pages with transparent material.
full size 4 pages 240 x 680 mm (4 x in book)
full size 6 pages (fold-out) 240 mm x 820 mm (3 x in book)
full size transparent 240 x 680 mm (2 x in book)
Paper:
inside 200 grs Bioset
transparent 180 grs. translucent
Print:
hard bound, black and white, screen print
inside translucent 2/0 black print
inside Bioset 2/2 black and grey print