The Search was published by Hamish Hamilton in 1993 and is an anomaly in Dyer’s career — his only conventional novel, and the last work he would produce in a recognizable genre before abandoning traditional form entirely. The setup is noir: a man named Walker is hired to find a woman who has disappeared. He searches across an unnamed landscape that might be Mediterranean, might be imaginary, and gradually discovers that the search itself has become more important than its object.
The novel begins as straightforward mystery but progressively dissolves its own conventions: the plot becomes recursive, the landscape becomes symbolic, and Walker’s quest takes on the quality of allegory rather than detection. Dyer is clearly working through his relationship with fictional form — testing whether the novel as traditionally conceived can accommodate the kind of writing he wants to do — and the answer seems to be no. After The Search, he abandoned fiction for the hybrid form that would become his signature.
The book is revealing as a transitional work: you can see Dyer’s characteristic concerns (the relationship between seeking and finding, the tendency of meaning to recede as you approach it, the comedy of obsessive pursuit) emerging from within conventional narrative and straining against its constraints. It is the work of a writer who has discovered that his talent lies elsewhere and is in the process of finding out where.
Collecting The Search
First edition (Hamish Hamilton, London, 1993): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First UK edition in dust jacket: $20–$50
- First US edition: $10–$25