Laughter in the Dark is a swift, cruel novel set in Berlin between the wars. Albinus, a prosperous and cultured art critic with a wife and daughter, becomes infatuated with a young cinema usher, Margot. His desire draws him into deception and a growing entanglement with her and with a cynical painter from her past. Told in a sharp, cinematic style with black humour, the book examines vanity, blindness and manipulation. It is an early example of Nabokov's skill at turning a simple tale of passion into a tight, ironic and unsettling study of self-deception.