Stone Reader 2002

A literary detective thriller, Stone Reader chronicles filmmaker Mark Moskowitz’s obsessive search for a forgotten novelist once hailed by the New York Times as the voice of his generation. In 1972, 18-year-old Moskowitz read the Times accolade and bought first-time author Dow Mossman’s The Stones of Summer. He lasted 20 pages. 25 years later, Moskowitz re-opened the book and couldn’t put it down. Eager to spread the word, he soon found that Stones was long out of print and that its author had vanished without further trace. His search for Mossman is also an entertainingly discursive enquiry into the phenomenon of the one-hit literary wonder. He criss-crosses America, following a trail of connections to his quarry: the original Times reviewer, writers, editors and readers, including Robert Gottlieb, editor of Catch-22, and the late critic Leslie Fiedler.

“I’ve never seen a movie that paid more heartfelt tribute to the power of artistic invention.” — J. Hoberman, Village Voice