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Stated First Edition at copyright page. Signed by Madison Smartt Bell at half-title page: "Madison Smartt Bell." Full printing line beginning with A. Dark blue boards, blue tweed cloth spine wrap, gilt spine titles, fine. Pages fine, clean; no writing. Several mystical arts illustrations at frontispiecea and titled sections. Bind fine, square; hinges intact. Original sharp pictorial dust wrapper, fine; unclipped 19.95, protected in new clear sleeve. Dark miasmic cover art by Mary Beth MacFarland of tuxed gentleman on something similar to absinthe nineteenth century depictions. Near fine signed first edition in same wrapper. Adrian Strother, a young American living in London, is "Doctor Sleep" in this novel by Madison Smartt Bell, the author of "Barking Man" and "Waiting for the End of the World." Madison Smartt Bell is one of the most gifted writers of his generation and a literary stylist with few peers. Doctor Sleep is a taut, satisfying psycho thriller released as a major motion picture under the title "Close Your Eyes". Adrian Strother is a hypnotherapist who plies his trade in a depressed section of London, doing the occasional job for Scotland Yard, which brings him into contact with a seedy trafficker. As the tale begins, Adrian's lover Clara moves out just as two friends enter the story from his drug-addled years in NYC. Adrian's attempts to reconcile past and present lead to a series of waking nightmares involving punks, a drug lord, and operatives from Scotland Yard. When young girls become victims of a serial killer's rage, a hypnotherapist's gifts violently play into Madison Bell's latest riveting novel. As little girls become the target of a serial killer, Adrian treads between tortured wakefulness and surreal sleep. The insights resulting from his insomnia are used to unlock the secrets of a man who believes he has discovered the key to immortality. Hypnotherapist by trade, insomniac by night, Adrian practices necromancy as well, spending his off-hours in the British Museum studying Giordano Bruno's writings. He is possessed by the desire to learn the secrets and acquire god-like powers, an obsession leaving him sleepless. In the end, he realizes his Faustian quest, only to find the result far different than imagined. A thrilling psychological study. "For my money, nobody else writing today does places--this time London--the grit and the grunge, the full feel of them, like Madison Smartt Bell." "This man wirtes the way de Sica filmed. His prose is vivid without being showy, witty without being self-satisfied, economical without being minimalist. The camera disappears." The novel's film, French and British mystery, did not receive wide release. Lower budget, well made with cathedral scenes and vistas round London. Appears unavailable but for press run dvd; found ddg search of Close Your Eyes, Doctor Sleep 2002 at rus ok. Goran Visnjic of ER series plays Giordano Bruno hypnotism acolyte. Possible this captures some nefarious realities and therefore not released in theaters. Some praise for whispering slow boil suspenseful and atmospheric tone. Plusso, a lead's re-volvo well used 244 brick. Printed in the United States of America. 290 pages. Insured post. Size: 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" Tall.
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