Pitch Dark

'Imaginative, intelligent and original' Elizabeth Hardwick

'A bright kaleidoscope of a book' Anne Tyler

'Two things hold Pitch Dark together and give it speed and magic. The first is Miss Adler's gift for language and observation .... and the second is her willingness to write candidly, even rawly, about emotions' New York Times

'It's perfect and prescient, a tremendously influential book' Chris Kraus, Slate

What's new. What else. What next. What's happened here.



Pitch Dark is a book about love. Kate Ennis is poised at a critical moment in an affair with a married man. The complications and contradictions pursue her from a house in rural Connecticut to a brownstone apartment in New York City, to a small island off the coast of Washington, to a pitch black night in backcountry Ireland.

Composed in the style of Renata Adler's celebrated novel Speedboat and displaying her keen journalist's eye and mastery of language, both simple and sublime, Pitch Dark is a bold and astonishing work of art.

With an introduction by Muriel Spark

A W&N Essential