The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty
Vida VendelaFrom the acclaimed author of Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name comes a taut, spellbinding literary thriller that probes the essence & malleability of identity
In Vendela Vida’s taut & mesmerizing novel of ideas, a woman travels to Casablanca, Morocco, on mysterious business. While checking into her hotel, the woman is robbed of her wallet & passport—all of her money and identification. Stripped of her identity, she feels burdened by the crime yet strangely liberated by her sudden freedom to be anyone she wants to be.
Told with vibrant, lush detail & a wicked sense of humor, The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty is part literary mystery, part psychological thriller—an unforgettable novel that explores free will, power, & a woman’s right to choose not her past, perhaps not her present, but certainly her future. This is Vendela Vida’s most assured & ambitious novel yet.
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“Part glamorous travelogue, part slow-burn mystery, this full-bodied tale of a runaway is at once formally inventive & heartbreakingly familiar. (It’s also insanely funny.)”— Lena Dunham
“[Vida’s] finest book....With its echoes of Hitchcock & Highsmith, this novel is full of darting pleasures.”— New York Times
°°°Vendela Vida is the award-winning author of six books, including Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name & The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty. Her new novel, We Run the Tides, will be published by Ecco on February 9, 2021. She is a founding editor of The Believer & coeditor of The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers & Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence, a collection of interviews with musicians. She was a founding board member of 826 Valencia, the San Francisco writing center for youth, & lives in the Bay Area with her family.