From the acclaimed author of The Journey Home , a new novel of tremendous power and beauty about a man’s hidden past and about the immutability of love and loss. For twenty years Christian Benediktsson has led a quiet life as William Randolph Hearst’s butler. His days are filled with the rituals of Hearst’s life and the demands of running a grand house. But in his most private thoughts and memories, he relives another life: his abandonment of his wife and children in Iceland for an actress in New York, a reckless affair and a tragic death, financial downfall, and the profound retreat from life that led him to Hearst’s San Simeon. No one else knows the secret of the man he once was—husband, father, businessman, lover—and, ultimately, even he will choose to forget that this person ever existed. Walking into the Night is a stunning portrait of a man wrestling with guilt and secret passions. Olaf Olafsson surpasses anything he has accomplished thus far in this wise and beautiful novel. The lavish California home of William Randolph Hearst is impeccably managed by butler Christian Benediktson, a tall, quiet man who keeps to himself and runs a no-nonsense operation. His past, however, continues to haunt him, and it slowly unfolds in a series of unsent letters to his wife, whom he left, along with his Icelandic home, 20 years before. Christian married above his station and inherited a fishing business in his native Iceland. After turning it into a lucrative exporting business, he began an affair with a Swedish vaudeville star in New York. After quietly leaving his wife, and after the affair self-destructed, he fled New York and all of his business contacts, and entered the service of Hearst. His guilt-ridden letters home to his wife explain his motives in a moving, introspective way. This fascinating novel is loosely based on Hearst's real-life butler, and Olafsson marvelously brings to life the isolation and small-town flavor of Iceland, pre-Depression New York, and the lavish parties of Hearst's mansion, all seen through the sad eyes of one man. Michael Spinella Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Praise for The Journey Home by Olaf Olafsson “Compelling . . . Akin to Thomas Mann . . . An astonishing story of confusion, loss, denial. Olafsson has created a woman of such complexity and uncalculated charm that he will leave readers wishing that they could actually meet her before it’s too late.” — Chicago Sun-Times “An exceptional novel . . . Engrossing . . . A tremendous accomplishment [and a] great triumph of novelistic imagination.” — The Observer (London) “Soulful and thoughtful . . . An impressively mature and wide-ranging book, both geographically and emotionally.” — New York Times Book Review “Undeniably graceful . . . It is vulnerability that makes The Journey Home so complete and appealing.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review “With masterful skill and elegant prose, Olafsson gradually reveals his fierce heroine and her complicated story. The Journey Home is an eerie, suspenseful novel, one that delivers surprises until the very last beautiful page and that happily remains with the reader long after that.” —Margot Livesey, author of Criminals and The Missing World From the acclaimed author of The Journey Home , a new novel of tremendous power and beauty about a man’s hidden past and about the immutability of love and loss. For twenty years Christian Benediktsson has led a quiet life as William Randolph Hearst’s butler. His days are filled with the rituals of Hearst’s life and the demands of running a grand house. But in his most private thoughts and memories, he relives another life: his abandonment of his wife and children in Iceland for an actress in New York, a reckless affair and a tragic death, financial downfall, and the profound retreat from life that led him to Hearst’s San Simeon. No one else knows the secret of the man he once was―husband, father, businessman, lover―and, ultimately, even he will choose to forget that this person ever existed. Walking into the Night is a stunning portrait of a man wrestling with guilt and secret passions. Olaf Olafsson surpasses anything he has accomplished thus far in this wise and beautiful novel. Praise for The Journey Home by Olaf Olafsson “Compelling . . . Akin to Thomas Mann . . . An astonishing story of confusion, loss, denial. Olafsson has created a woman of such complexity and uncalculated charm that he will leave readers wishing that they could actually meet her before it’s too late.” — Chicago Sun-Times “An exceptional novel . . . Engrossing . . . A tremendous accomplishment [and a] great triumph of novelistic imagination.” — The Observer (London) “Soulful and thoughtful . . . An impressively mature and wide-ranging book, both geographically and emotionally.” — New York Times Book Review “Undeniably graceful . . . It is vulnerability that makes The Journey Home so complete and app