The Reservoir

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A former Wall Street veteran, quarantined by the coronavirus, becomes consumed with madness—or the fulfillment of his own mythic fate. This beautiful fever dream of a novella put me in mind of Gabriel García Márquez because of its sense of romance—and humor—in the midst of calamity. I’ll never look at Central Park the same way.”

Inspired by Duchovny’s self-reflection while sequestered in his own aerie above Central Park at the height of the pandemic, this work is provocative, challenging, and not without its moments of dark humor.” David Duchovny's existentialist novella is not to be missed. [ The Reservoir] is a novel of many well-crafted and complex lines [and] Duchovny's writing is a combination of high and low--and yes, that distinction still exists, if barely. His metaphors and similes are arresting . . . The Reservoir is an important novel for how it captures, not just where we are now, but where we are forever. Disease--like Covid, or like tuberculosis in The Magic Mountain--takes us on a journey outward and at the same time inward." The reader is faced with the stark question of ‘is death perfect?’ Will death be perfect for me? Is this my ‘now’? What will my future be?

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He’d had a successful enough under-the-radar career on Wall Street, and when he gold-plated parachuted out in 2009, he was still very young for retirement. There had been blustering talk of partly blaming his firm, among others, and by extension possibly him, for the American greed and financial malfeasance that had brought the world crashing down. Accountability was all the rage for a couple years, but that fever, that witch hunt for the subprime illuminati cabal of bad guys, had passed with the amnesia a return to normalcy and a humming economy bestows upon a society—with just a wave of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, he thought. Besides, he wasn’t a big fish. Nor would he be a fall guy. Neither hero nor zero, he enjoyed the safety of the middle. He’d done well enough, but he’d never been all in with risk. He was content to stay in his low-mid-six-figures lane year after year; it added up, and he had raised a family comfortably on it. Twenty-five nine-to-five years of the subway to and from his lower Manhattan office and summers on Fire Island were nothing to be ashamed of, but he suspected a straight money job never quite fit his soul. Res” is a riddle and a guidepost, sort of. It can mean a “thing” or an abbreviation for reservoir and resolution, Duchovny tells the reader. All three, perhaps. There’s a surface of still water, and then there’s a deep end.

David Duchovny’s existentialist novella is not to be missed. [ The Reservoir] is a novel of many well-crafted and complex lines [and] Duchovny’s writing is a combination of high and low—and yes, that distinction still exists, if barely. His metaphors and similes are arresting . . . The Reservoir is an important novel for how it captures, not just where we are now, but where we are forever. Disease—like Covid, or like tuberculosis in The Magic Mountain—takes us on a journey outward and at the same time inward.” David Duchovny’s existentialist novella is not to be missed. [ The Reservoir] is a novel of many well-crafted and complex lines [and] Duchovny's writing is a combination of high and low—and yes, that distinction still exists, if barely. His metaphors and similes are arresting . . . The Reservoir is an important novel for how it captures, not just where we are now, but where we are forever. Disease—like Covid, or like tuberculosis in The Magic Mountain—takes us on a journey outward and at the same time inward." Born and raised in New York City David Duchovny earned an A.B. in English literature from Princeton University, and an ABD in English literature from Yale University. He was on the road to earning his Ph.D. when his interest in playwriting led him to acting. Subsequently, he emerged to become one of the most highly acclaimed actors in Hollywood.Briefly, it is about a man in New York, reaching out to make a connection with a previously unknown woman, during the pandemic. Sitting and brooding night after night, gazing out his huge picture window high above the Central Park Reservoir, Ridley spots a flashing light in an apartment across the park as if a lonely quarantined person is signaling him in Morse code. His determination to find out who this mystery woman is, this fellow quarantine damsel in distress trapped in her own Fifth Avenue tower, leads him on an epic quest that will ultimately tempt him with either delusional madness or the fulfillment of his own mythic fate. Inspired by Duchovny's self-reflection while sequestered in his own aerie above Central Park at the height of the pandemic, this work is provocative, challenging, and not without its moments of dark humor."

David Duchovny hat mit The Reservoir ein Buch verfasst das zum Nachdenken anregt. Das als seine erfundene Geschichte basiert aber auf tatsächliche Begebenheiten und birgt eine grausame Wahrheit. Warum erfunden, damit dieses Buch ungehindert in die Öffentlichkeit gelangt. Wer böses denkt um Wahrheiten zu unterschlagen muss sich heute etwas einfallen lassen. Ich sehe diese Buch als herausragendes Zeitdokument und deshalb gibt auch dieses Buch als Bibliotheksbindung um es für die Ewigkeit zu erhalten. Award-winning actor, writer, director, singer-songwriter and bestselling author David Duchovny appears in person at Harold Washington LibraryCenterto discuss his new novella, The Reservoir. David will be in conversation with journalist Marley Kayden.

The city was injured, on its knees. Because . . . pandemic, like he heard kids say. He really had to squint if he didn’t want to see the big tents go up over on the east side of the park to catch the contagion’s runoff from the hospitals—like those mobile hospitals during wartime. He’d heard a rumor that the ad hoc structures were morgues, tents refrigerating corpses till they could figure out where to put them for good. His mother used to say, “The morgue is filled with optimists.” Duchovny has worn many hats—actor, director, songwriter—but writing was always his first love. This is his first novella, following four successful novels (including last year's Truly Like Lightning). Unremarkable Wall Street trader Ridley took a buyout in 2009, and 11 years later finds himself in isolation during the worst of the COVID pandemic. From his high-rise apartment overlooking New York's Central Park reservoir, he has plenty of time to reflect on his failed marriage and his troubled relationship with his daughter. As a distraction, he takes nighttime photos of the apartment building across the park. When he sees a series of flashing lights, he has a Rear Window moment, becoming obsessed with the idea that a woman is sending out distress signals, so he responds with his own flashing lights. When he gets no reply, his obsession takes him outside for the first time in months to follow the woman when she exits her building. These forays take Ridley deep into the Ramble, a perilous part of the park known after dark for anonymous hookups among gay people. As Ridley engages in ever more dangerous behavior, the distinction between fevered hallucinations and suicidal risk-taking becomes blurred. VERDICT Inspired by Duchovny's self-reflection while sequestered in his own aerie above Central Park at the height of the pandemic, this work is provocative, challenging, and not without its moments of dark humor. —Beth E. Andersen Library Journal