Night and Its
Longings is a hauntingly atmospheric, beautifully
crafted crime noir written by accomplished novelist, short story writer, poet,
playwright and filmmaker, Philip Cioffari.
The book, set in June 1995, centers on Jake
Garrett, a “less-than-famous,” hardboiled crime novelist. On the brink of age
40, Jake is “short on money and friends.” He does his best writing late at
night and often keeps company via the disaffected, spiritually wounded lonely-hearts
who call in to an after-midnight, radio program. Jake has been known to take
walks in the shadowy wee-hours, through "abandoned city streets, past shuttered
bars, darkened storefronts."
“I wasn’t what you’d call a fearful man, except
in the way most life-long New Yorkers are fearful,” Jake tells the reader.
“Never leaving my car unlocked. Always keeping tabs on my surroundings.
Trusting my sixth-sense to detect danger…The fact of the matter was this: the
self was the enemy I feared most, not strangers on the street.”
One night, just as Jake is hitting his writing
stride--drawing “wisdom in dark hours”--he’s jarred by a knock on the door that
opens onto the courtyard of his Village (New York City) apartment building. There, he is
surprised by Norm Davison, the husband of Vera Davison, a woman with
whom Jake had a passionate, one-year love affair ten years prior. After Vera
went back to Norm, Vera and Jake had lost touch. However, on this dark night,
the spirit of Vera is suddenly resurrected in a chilling and foreboding way.
Norm is beside himself, worried about Vera, who
has disappeared for 11 days. Is she in danger? Alive? Dead? Did she leave by
force or vanish voluntarily? Norm, Vera’s husband, is frustrated by the police
investigation. While he was aware of Jake and Vera’s affair, he is now
desperate to find his wife—this includes his enlisting his wife’s adulterous ex-lover to aid the search.
What ensues is a dark, deepening story that
reveals, layer by layer, details of the love affair shared between Jake and
Vera and the life Vera went on to live without Jake—as a wife, mother, and budding photographer. When Norm allows Jake access into the minutia of Vera’s
life--including his poring over her journals and photographs--even more questions arise. Amidst an extensive search that winds through New York and later, South
Carolina, Jake’s crime-writing detective skills are put into action. Along the
way, he begins to search his own soul, realizing that Vera’s departure
from his life created a “dead center” in him—an abyss of sorrow, guilt, and regret.
Might Vera have experienced a similar void?
The introspective intrigue of Jake’s narrative
voice propels a suspenseful plot where danger unspools via short, ratcheting
chapters. Cioffari (If
Anyone Asks, Says I Died from the Heartbreaking Blues) delivers a spellbinding--profoundly
thought-provoking--literary mystery that ultimately unravels with surprising twists.
Night
and Its Longings by Philip Cioffari
Livingston
Press, $18.99 paperback, 978-1604893748, 234 pages
Publishing Date: March 26,
2024
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To learn more about Philip Cioffari and
his extensive body of work, link HERE
