The Village

David Mamet's work as a playwright, essayist, director, and screenwriter has earned him a reputation as one of the most adventurous creative figures of our day. Now he turns his hand to fiction for the first time with The Village, a novel written with the explosive force and ferocious insight for which all Mamet's work is renowned. The Village brings to life a remote New England community full of dark undercurrents and brooding silences. One after another, the inhabitants of the village reveal themselves to us even as they conceal themselves from each other. Alternating vivid dialogue with the most private thoughts, the author takes us deep inside their secret selves, unfolding in particular the unspoken forces that shape relationships between men and women. These are unforgettable figures: an old hunter whose knowledge of the place is bone deep; a newcomer who chops firewood as his marriage expires; a slinky young woman whose every step unsettles the local males; a store owner fretting his way toward bankruptcy. Through a year the novel traces their lives, unfolding not one but a multitude of stories, revealing the profound interior drama of every human consciousness and the extraordinarily complex interconnections that animate the spirit of a place. Precisely observed and beautifully written, The Village is a landmark work from one of our most important writers.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.