Disaster Mon Amour

"In this brilliant book, David Thomson tells the story of how we came to make disaster and catastrophe our best friends-how we let terror cocoon and take over our imaginations to avoid seeing the things that really frighten us. Riveting and totally original."-Adam Curtis, BBC filmmaker and political journalist

"David Thomson is, I think, the best writer on film in our time. He is our most argumentative and trustworthy historian of the screen."-Michael Ondaatje, author of The Cat's Table

"With bracing prose and intensity of feeling, this book will rivet any serious reader concerned about the world-climate change, COVID, war, and other menaces. A grim but burnished book."-Diane Johnson, author of Lorna Mott Comes Home

"David Thomson's Disaster Mon Amour is a pinata of literary pleasures: acid thoughts, film lore, historical meditations, and astute observation, especially about the culture's gourmandizing of despair. His high-stepping book is informed, alert, full of fury and fun."-John Lahr, author of Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

"Any book that takes Laurel and Hardy and Rachel Maddow as prophets of doom-and makes you want to see a Laurel and Hardy movie with Rachel Maddow as much as you want to see Laurel and Hardy as guests on her show-is going to be read at least twice."-Greil Marcus, author of Mystery Train