The I Index

This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers

Next in the queue

71

/100

I Index Overall Rating

Readers

74/100

Critics

67/100

Scholars

N/A

Author:

Jeff Sharlet

Publisher:

W. W. Norton & Company

Date:

February 11, 2020

A journalist and Dartmouth professor travels after dark from Los Angeles to Dublin to Russia to Nairobi, photographing and profiling a range of night owls—bakers, last-call drinkers, the homeless, and others lurking on the margins of everyday life.

What The Reviewers Say

Jennifer Percy,
The New York Times Book Review
The writing in Jeff Sharlet’s gorgeous new book...takes place between lonely traumas.
Michael Washburn,
Los Angeles Review of Books
We often say that a book has changed our lives. But it’s rare to say that a book made us more human. This is a big statement, I know, but This Brilliant Darkness feels as transformative and essential as anything I have read in years. Sharlet’s work is an incantation, a prayer for and summoning of the human powers of observation, empathy, and compassion.
Will McGrath,
The Star Tribune
... [a] powerful new work of nonfiction.
L. Benjamin Rolsky,
Los Angeles Review of Books
Sharlet’s subjects of investigation certainly include things and the people who make them, but those very people are often times the ones giving flesh to the incarnate word through their stories.