Zona. A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room

From a writer whose mastery encompasses fiction, criticism, and the fertile realm between the two, comes a new book that confirms his reputation for the unexpected. In Zona, Geoff Dyer attempts to unlock the mysteries of a film that has haunted him ever since he first saw it thirty years ago: Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. ("Every single frame, " declared Cate Blanchett, "is burned into my retina.") As Dyer guides us into the zone of Tarkovsky's imagination, we realize that the film is only the entry point for a radically original investigation of the enduring questions of life, faith, and how to live.
In a narrative that gives free rein to the brilliance of Dyer's distinctive voice-acute observation, melancholy, comedy, lyricism, and occasional ill-temper-Zona takes us on a wonderfully unpredictable journey in which we try to fathom, and realize, our deepest wishes. Zona is one of the most unusual books ever written about film, and about how art-whether a film by a Russian director or a book by one of our most gifted contemporary writers-can shape the way we see the world and how we make our way through it.