The Witnesses are Gone
Will be published approx. on 19. January 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
100 pages
978-1-910312-97-1 (ISBN)
Description
Moving into an old and decaying house, Martin Swann discovers a box of video cassettes in the garden shed. One of them is a bootleg copy of a morbid and disturbing film by obscure French director, Jean Rien.
The discovery leads Martin on a search for the director's other films, and for a way to understand Rien's filmography, drawing him away from his home and his lover into a shadowy realm of secrets, rituals and creeping decay. An encounter with a crazed film journalist in Gravesend leads to drug-fuelled visions in Paris - and finally to the Mexican desert where a grim revelation awaits.
The Witnesses Are Gone is a first-hand account of a journey into the darkest parts of the underworld - a look behind the screen on which our collective nightmares play.
The discovery leads Martin on a search for the director's other films, and for a way to understand Rien's filmography, drawing him away from his home and his lover into a shadowy realm of secrets, rituals and creeping decay. An encounter with a crazed film journalist in Gravesend leads to drug-fuelled visions in Paris - and finally to the Mexican desert where a grim revelation awaits.
The Witnesses Are Gone is a first-hand account of a journey into the darkest parts of the underworld - a look behind the screen on which our collective nightmares play.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-910312-97-1 (9781910312971)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Joel Lane (1963-2013) was the author of two novels, From Blue to Black and The Blue Mask; several short story collections, The Earth Wire, The Lost District, The Terrible Changes, Do Not Pass Go, Where Furnaces Burn, The Anniversary of Never and Scar City; a novella, The Witnesses Are Gone; and four volumes of poetry, The Edge of the Screen, Trouble in the Heartland, The Autumn Myth and Instinct. He edited three anthologies of short stories, Birmingham Noir (with Steve Bishop), Beneath the Ground and Never Again (with Allyson Bird). He won an Eric Gregory Award, two British Fantasy Awards and a World Fantasy Award. Born in Exeter in 1963, he lived most of his life in Birmingham, where he died in 2013.