Just finished "Night Film"

[SheilaT]

by Marisha Pessi.

It ended up being a disappointment. I'm going to try to post without plot spoilers. It's more or less a mystery. A young woman, daughter of a very strange and reclusive film-maker, commits suicide. The narrator of the book, an investigative reporter, starts investigating. There's a lot of quasi interactive stuff, pages supposedly gotten off the internet, and that's quite well done. During the first three quarters of the book the mystery builds, complications ensue.

But then, it just doesn't work for me. The apparent solution to the base mystery comes about 20 pages from the end, then more information is revealed. The last couple of paragraphs left me furious, because it ends as the reclusive film-maker's movies end, with nothing actually resolved, and things left open.

I am not sure I'm willing to read another book by this author. Which is a shame, because all the way up to the last fifty pages or so (when things get really weird), I was being very impressed. I'm someone who tries to write, and plotting is by far my weakest skill, and so I was in awe of the plotting that was going on. But, but, I was left entirely dissatisfied with the outcome. Even though I get it that the ambiguity of the ending was intended.

Maybe the problem is me, that I want things neatly tied up, and that's not what modern novels do.

I'd be very interested in hearing what others who've read this book thought.