George Toles is film studies' most astute close reader and its finest prose stylist. This book captures the ineffable strangeness of P. T. Anderson's films–their unusual forms, unsettled soundscapes, and characters wanting unmet connections. Toles explores the subjective interiors and cultural terrain these blinkered selves–and we viewers–cannot fully see. It's been said that actors are our substitutes, avatars who test unplumbed psychic depths. So it is with Toles, our guide to these miraculous films.–Carol Vernallis, author of Unruly Media: Youtube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema