Perlmann's Silence
SynopsisPlot
Pascal Mercier’s critically acclaimed debut novel, Night Train to Lisbon, became an international bestseller and the basis for a film starring Jeremy Irons. Now, in Perlmann’s Silence, Mercier delivers a deft psychological portrait of a man striving to get his life back on track in the wake of his beloved wife’s death. Philipp Perlmann, prominent linguist and speaker at a gathering of international academics in a seaside town near Genoa, is struggling to maintain his grip on reality. Derailed by grief and no longer confident of his professional standing, writing his keynote address seems like an insurmountable task. Terrified of failure, he decides to plagiarize the work of Leskov, a Russian colleague, and breathes a sigh of relief once the text has been submitted. But when Leskov’s imminent arrival is announced, Perlmann’s mounting desperation leads him to contemplate drastic measures.
Story
About this book
Philipp Perlmann is a respected linguist invited to lead a gathering of international academics in a coastal town near Genoa, Italy. He is expected to deliver a keynote address, but the recent death of his wife has left him unable to concentrate or produce original work. His confidence in his own scholarship has collapsed, and the blank page in front of him feels impossible to fill.
Facing a deadline he cannot meet, Perlmann turns to the unpublished manuscript of a Russian colleague named Leskov and decides to pass it off as his own. For a brief moment the pressure lifts. Then word arrives that Leskov himself is about to join the conference, and what had seemed like a private solution becomes a trap. Perlmann's fear of exposure pushes him toward increasingly extreme thinking as the days before the event run out.
Pascal Mercier, a Swiss author also known as the philosopher Peter Bieri, sets this story at the intersection of language, memory, and professional identity. The novel examines how grief can strip away the structures a person relies on, leaving them exposed to choices they would not otherwise consider. Mercier is also the author of Night Train to Lisbon, which became an international bestseller and was adapted into a film.
