Hector Mann directed and starred in a handful of silent comedies in the 1920s. He was just beginning to realize his potential as a filmmaker when bad studio management and the introduction of sound --- deadly for a man with a heavy Spanish accent --- ended his career. Shortly thereafter, he disappeared without a trace. Because he was not quite famous, no one, it seems, looked very hard for him.

His now obscure films appeal to David Zimmer, a Vermont professor who is slowly and painfully coping with the death of his wife and sons in a plane crash. He throws himself into the few films of Mann's surviving oeuvre and writes the sole definitive work on the films of Hector Mann. The book comes to the attention of Hector Mann's wife, Frieda, and she invites Professor Zimmer to meet the mysterious filmmaker, who is currently dying in New Mexico. Zimmer is suspicious of the offer and refuses to go until he meets Alma, a close connection of the Manns who grew up on the ranch where they shut themselves off from the world. Alma convinces him that not only is Hector Mann alive, but he never stopped making movies.

Although the Manns believe that David Zimmer ought to see these films, Hector has ordered that his lifework should be burned within 24 hours of his death, and his time is growing short. One of the many charms of THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS is the stories within the story. These digressions are full of grace and relevance, whether anecdotes or film plots. Alma tells David what happened to Hector, and his life story is full of surprises, turnabouts, and tragedy. It only makes David even more curious to see the films that sprung from such a man, and he conquers his fear of flying to make the trip to New Mexico, unaware that his presence during Hector Mann's last days will act as a catalyst for further misfortune and loss.

THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS is a complex study of loss, with nearly every character wrestling with grief in some fashion. Movie characters don't exist; the dead used to exist, but no longer. Both David Zimmer and Hector Mann find solace in the movies, comfortable in the philosophically parallel planes of the fictional and the dead. One would expect that a book so immersed in pain and self-blame to be very depressing, but it is not. It is lively, fast-paced, and often funny, a celebration of bright images before the screen goes dark.