Home Books Reel Bay: A Cinematic Essay

Reel Bay: A Cinematic Essay

Reel Bay: A Cinematic Essay

by Jana Larson

Coffee House Press ·2021 ·224 pages ·Essays
Bottom of the Pile
Bottom of the Pile
I Index
15/99
Bottom of the Pile

24/99

Critics

Bottom of the Pile

6/99

Readers

n/a

Scholars

13/99

Rating

34/99

Volume

10/99

Rating

3/99

Volume

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About This Book

What was Takako Konishi really doing in North Dakota, and why did she end up dead? Did she get lost and freeze to death, as the police concluded, while searching for the fictional treasure buried in a snowbank at the end of the Coen Brothers' film Fargo ? Or was it something else that brought her unrequited love, ritual suicide, a meteor shower, a far-flung search for purpose? The seed of an obsession took root in struggling film student Jana Larson when she chanced upon a news bulletin about the case. Over the years and across continents, the material Jana gathered in her search for the real Takako outgrew multiple attempts at screenplays and became this remarkable, genre-bending essay that leans into the space between fact and fiction, life and death, author and subject, reality and delusion.


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Reviews

"Reel Bay may be a record of Larson's failure to render Takako's story onto the screen, but as an essay, it succeeds at posing thought-provoking questions about the blurred lines between truth and fiction."

KAT SOLOMON· The Chicago Review of Books Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"While unconventional, it works, and the result is a cleverly aberrant narrative structure dealing with the creative process and the difficult search for meaning ..."

Andru Okun· The Minneapolis Star Tribune Read review ↗ Near the Top

"If the book, like Larson's journey through Takako's story, occasionally diverges or becomes difficult to follow, and offers few concrete answers, it seems that that is part of the point."

Annie Bostrom· Booklist Read review ↗ Maybe Someday

"Though initially intriguing, Larson's narrative remains emotionally distant throughout, and its stylistic gambits largely unrewarding."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Maybe Someday

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