Walking into the Night is a novel from Olaf Olafsson about a man's hidden past and the immutability of love and loss.
 First edition (Icelandic) | |
| Author | Olaf Olafsson |
|---|---|
| Original title | Höll minninganna |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Vaka-Helgafell (Iceland) Pantheon (US) |
Publication date | 2001 |
| Publication place |  United States |
Published in English | October 28, 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 272[1] (Hardcover) 272[2] (Paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-375-42254-4 |
Synopsis
editFor twenty years Christian Benediktsson has led a quiet life as the butler to William Randolph Hearst, the greatest newspaper magnate in the world. His days are filled with the rituals of Hearst's life and the demands of running a grand household. But in his most private thoughts and memories, he relives another life: once a husband and father in Iceland, he abandoned his family for an actress in New York, where his affair ended in death and financial ruin. Retreating from his previous existence, he ended up at Hearst's castle in California. No one else knows the secret of the man he once was—husband, father, businessman, lover—and, ultimately, even he will choose to forget that this person ever existed.[3]
Critical reception
edit"Olafsson tells the life story of William Randolph Hearst's fictional butler – deftly and grippingly… Clear-eyed and captivating, Olafsson writes effortlessly, seemingly incapable of a dull paragraph or page. His people are real, period atmosphere and detail unobtrusively perfect, his novel a gem and a small masterpiece." – Kirkus Review [4]
"An elegant and moving novel that knows, and shows, the value of tact, selection and economy." – The Independent (UK) [5]
References
edit- ^ "Walking into the Night (Hardcover)". Amazon.ca.
- ^ "Walking into the Night (Paperback)". Amazon.ca.
- ^ "Random House".
- ^ "Walking into the Night by Olaf Olafsson". Kirkus Reviews. May 19, 2010. Retrieved October 19, 2024.
- ^ Tonkin, Boyd (May 28, 2004). "A Week in Books: From digital-media mogul to novelist". The Independent. Retrieved October 19, 2024.