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Autograph Man

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By a strange coincidence in life Alex-Li is a half Asian half Caucasion of Jewish Religion. As a teenager, during the visit to a wrestling event with two other friends he meets another boy who opens to him the world of autograph collecting. Unfortunatley that same day his father days of a heart-attack.

Years later Alex-Li is a professional autograph collector and carries a completely chaotic life. He is still surrounded by the same friends of that day. All three try to make their own strides in life with some regular (Call-center employee at an insurance) to uncommon jobs (rabi), as usual they know better what Alex-Li should do than himself. There is Esther, the sister of one of Alex-Li friends who whorships Alex-Li and is his unregular love. In his profession Alex-Li meets a wide range of strange people, who are colourful characters on its own.

The big dream of Alex-Li is to get an autograph of an old Hollywood star named Kitty Alexander... When one day an autograph of her appears in the kitchen confusion reigns and the origin of the autograph remains a mistery.

A trip to New York will become crucial to solve this mistery while paranoia increases when the celebration of the anniversary of Alex-Li's father comes closer...

Zadie Smith brings us once again a complex environment where quite good developed characters have their affairs. It takes a while to get used to the rythm of the novel, and probably the novel would be better when she would not try to link so many complex relationships and digrssions and let the story and its characters flow.