Stone Reader

A very rare thing: A movie about reading, made for lovers of books. Quite a challenge, and the director, Mark Moskowitz, pulls it off. The center of the movie is his search for the author of a book, The Stones of Summer, published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1972 to good reviews, which promptly sank without a trace. The author, Dow Mossman, never wrote another book. Moskowitz interviews publishers, critics, Mossman’s agent, all book lovers, and the movie in a way becomes a movie about the making of the movie, which is perilous territory, but it works. What will Mossman be like when he finally turns up? We learn that he suffered a breakdown shortly after publication. Will he be a babbling street person? A bitter recluse? Moskowitz stretches out the suspense … and I shouldn’t say more. The book was reprinted a few years ago and is now easy to find. After learning so much about it in such an entertaining way, I guess I’ll have to check it out of the library and read it one of these days. They say you’ll either love it or not be able to get through it. No hurry … Moskowitz himself bought the book when it was new, couldn’t get into it, and didn’t get around to reading it until 1996.