The Reservoir follows an unexceptional man in an exceptional time. We see our present-day pandemic world and New York City through the eyes of a former Wall Street veteran, Ridley, as he looks back upon his life in his enforced quarantine solitude, wondering what it all means and who he really is.

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 leads him on an epic quest that will ultimately tempt him with either delusional madness or the fulfillment of his own mythic fate.

Is he a dying man going mad or an everyman metamorphosing into a hero? Or both? We accompany Ridley as he leaves the safety of his apartment window to save the Fifth Avenue femme fatale and descends into a dangerous, increasingly surreal world of global conspiracies, madness, and sickness of this viral time. As Ridley’s actions grow more and more uncharacteristic, he realizes the key to all the mysteries of now, and even all of history, seem to lie deep beneath the freezing waters of the reservoir.

The Reservoir is a twisted rom-com for our distanced time, when the merest touch could kill and conspiracy theories propagate like viruses – a contemporary union of Death in Venice, Rear Window, and The Plague.

The Reservoir is a novella by actor and author David Duchovny. The story is bizarre. It is completely baffling and I had to re-read so many sections trying to work out what was actually occurring and yet it was intriguing and engrossing too. I was just glad it was only 160 pages long through as any longer and I might have given up.

The plot is set during the pandemic in New York and follows Ridley, an older man who is living in a high-rise building overlooking Central Park. The premise follows his isolation from the world. He spends a lot of time staring out of his windows to the world below and it is on one of these occasions that he notices someone using Morse Code in another high-rise, a woman.

We are never quite sure whether events are real or a psychological episode brought on by loneliness and lockdown. Ridley believes the woman he is ‘communicating’ with needs rescuing.

The Reservoir is a very philosophical book. It looks back at the pandemic and the mental health issues that being in lockdown and isolated from the rest of the world had on some of the population. It certainly leaves you with plenty to think about and a feeling of sadness for what some people experienced.

Overall, whilst the writing was excellent I just couldn’t connect with Ridley. Yes, he had issues but he was also arrogant and came across as quite narcissistic. I like unusual books but for me, I think this pushed my boundaries a little too far.

David Duchovny is an award-winning actor, writer, director, New York Times best-selling author, and singer-songwriter. With an acting career spanning more than three decades, Duchovny is a two-time Golden Globe winner and four-time Emmy nominee.

He is the author of five works of fiction: The Reservoir, Truly Like Lightning, Holy Cow, Bucky F*cking Dent, and Miss Subways. As a musician, Duchovny has released three studio albums, Hell or Highwater, Every Third Thought, and Gestureland.