The Return

"THE RETURN, like its protagonist Bernard Aoust, is refreshingly old-school, reminding the reader of the artistic ambition and appealing unities of modernism. In THE RETURN, James Terry has crafted a riveting story about vision, obsession, and transgression. It is an inverted Henry James novel, in which the displaced European hero is simultaneously repulsed and drawn into American life, conscientiously shedding the novelty of pocket-screens and celebrating the raw awe of cinema, especially silent film. The prose is as unquittable as Aoust's chain smoking. This novel deserves to be read in conversation with the canon." - Phong Nguyen, author of Bronze Drum and The Adventures of Joe Harper

"A French cinephile, May '68 radical and committed Luddite. Bernard Aoust just wasn't made for these times, which makes him great company in THE RETURN, James Terry's engrossing portrait of a "frog out of water" guided by a singular obsession. Berkeley is no place for a silent-film sleuth, but in an era in which search engines have seemingly eradicated all mystery, Terry's sharply drawn curmudgeon remains attuned to the inexplicable. Grimly satirical and movie-mad, THE RETURN mourns what we've lost in the pursuit of having everything everywhere all at once." - Ann Lewinson, author of Still Life with Meredith

"In THE RETURN, James Terry playfully grapples with the question of memory. Professor Aoust's reconstruction project of Le Retour, the lost silent film by the mysterious French director Michel Defoix, is a powerful metaphor for the personal and collective memory of an entire generation, the one that believed it could change the world in May '68, while at the same time challenging us with a radically contemporary question: can new technologies kill the mystery, the freedom to forget, that shapes our individual and collective consciousness? And, above all, is this really what we want?" - Javier Moreno, author of Null Island