The Silver Book: A Novel

"In November, Olivia Laing (whose experimental novel Crudo was an international bestseller and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize ) will publish The Silver Book , a novel billed as both “a queer love story and a noirish thriller” set in 1970s Italy. In it, a young English artist meets the (real) production designer Danilo Donati, before joining him as his assistant at the film studio where reality is recast and reconstructed. These are troubled times—the ‘ Years of Lead ,’ during which hundreds died in terror attacks—and very soon the violence will be knocking at their door. Laing wrote the book in a three-month frenzy in 2024, describing the process as like “an extraordinary tidal wave I was riding…I’d be typing as fast as I could, with the sense that I could hear the words.” I can’t wait to read the result."