Mark Haber

From the author of Reinhardt's Garden and Saint Sebastian's Abyss comes a breathless new novel of delirious obsession. Bereft after the death of his ailing wife, a retired professor has resumed his life's work—a book that will stand as a towering cathedral to Michel de Montaigne, reframing the inventor of the essay for the modern age. The challenge is the...

What I wanted more than anything was to be standing beside Schmidt, in concert with Schmidt, at the foot of Saint Sebastian's Abyss along with Schmidt, hands cupped to the sides of our faces, debating art, transcendence, and the glory of the apocalypse. Former best friends who built their careers writing about a single work of art meet after a...