Dana Spiotta

"From the strikingly original National Book Award nominee, a riveting novel set in Los Angeles and New York that focuses on three women--how they define themselves, how they create meaningful work, how they love"--

A Novel

Innocents and Others

Abigail F

"Sometimes doing something you love is the most restorative thing. TV seems to relax you, but it is the relaxation of being drugged. It deadens you, and you want something deeper and more satisfying.”

There was something unbridgeable init. But that was such a ridiculous idea, as if any human experience couldn't be bridged. How to build the bridge? You talk about it and find the things you understand in it. The pieces of your own experience in the other. That's the bridge, she thought.

She thought if she could figure out the place they came apart, she could fix it and he would return to her. Being left was bottomless. Not only in the moment, but the way it gave the lie to all the moments that preceded it. Is that true? Is love real and true only ifit continues? Was it revealed to be "not love" when it unraveled?

Elle Geoghegan 

Meadow Mori and Carrie Wexler grew up together in Los Angeles, and both became film-makers. Meadow makes challenging documentaries; Carrie makes successful feature films with a feminist slant. The two friends have everything in common - except their views on sex, power, movie-making and morality. And yet their loyalty trumps their different approaches to film and to life. Until, one day, a mysterious woman with a unique ability to cold-call and seduce powerful men over the phone - not through sex, but through listening - becomes the subject of one of Meadow's documentaries. Her downfall, and what makes her so extraordinarily moving, is that she pretends to be someone she is not.Heart-breaking and insightful, Innocents and Others is an astonishing novel about friendship, identity, loneliness and art.

Gary Homewood

The friendship of two women who become film makers, one commercial feminist, one experimental documentaries. Growing up in the 70s and 80s as film technology transistions (I loved the plot strand about phone hacking). Odd, interesting characters, interesting interwoven stories. Imbued with a love of film, high art vs low, descriptions of film art projects. Often artfully emotional. Like early Don Dellilo.

Innocents and Others A Novel

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