Paul Auster's new novel Invisible, his best since The Invention of Solitude. It's 1967. Adam Walker, a young New York City student and poet-in-training meets, then becomes hopelessly entangled with, a professor who may or may not be an American intelligence operative and his slinky French girlfriend. The shock of a brief affair with the slinky girlfriend either does or doesn't cause Adam to sleep with his own sister. Murder possibly occurs. Adam Walker may actually be "Adam Walker," that is to say, John Smith or John Doe. Adam's story may be a nonfiction memoir that's purposely ambiguous on key details, or a novel-in-parts in which "Adam Walker" is a character created by "Paul Auster." Memoir blends with twice-removed third-party recollections and other texts that keep interrupting, and rewriting, Walker's story. A thoughtfully conceived and gracefully written psychological mystery that keeps you in suspense right up until its ambiguous final page. Disturbing and highly recommended.
