Customer Reviews

The Identity Man

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is my first Andrew Klavan book and I cannot believe I have not read the works of this intelligent, far-reaching author. Well, I will certainly backtrack and read his other books if this writing is any indication of his talent.

Klavan crafts a story about an inconsequential thief who has a sad history. He has never caught a break and has resorted to crime when his "skin begins to crawl." His name is John Shannon and there are parts of him that represent universal desires. He would have liked to have had a loving childhood, he would have liked to have fallen in love with a good woman but, instead, he is a two-time loser who could face years in prison if he commits another felony. And yet, he cannot stop himself, he teams up with a despicable character who draws him into a breaking and entering transgression that sets up Klavan's plot.

The backdrop of the story is a ruined city, denigrated by floods, fire, corrupt police, clergy and politicians. There doesn't seem to be any saving grace; he paints a bleak picture of American corruption from the top to the very bottom. John Shannon is played and pushed through this immorality unknowingly. He is given a new identity, plastic surgery and new name, which he naively accepts as his ticket to freedom from a life of failure. John also has an unusual talent. He is able to look at a piece of wood and see something and carve an inspiring piece that sets him apart from being just an ordinary carpenter. His talent leads him to the possibilities of happiness. They are only possibilities because crooked factions want vengeance and will stop at nothing. Some of the scenes are truly brutal.

Klavan brings in all that we fear, our normal lives being torn from us and the few that we trust prove to be purely evil. His characters are multi-faceted; they are enigmas and one wonders if your "identity is a stain." Is the dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain the downfall of our society, our country?

This author wrote an intelligent mystery, which does not insult the reader. This was a page turner for me as I was caught up in John Shannon's metamorphosis. If he had to die, he wanted to die in the life "he was supposed to live." A great read with some power behind the words.

Andrew Klavan has crafted a finely honed thriller, one that if Alfred Hitchcock were alive to read, would surely be optioned by the master to convert to film. In many ways, this book reminded me of The Man Who Knew Too Much, or North by Northwest. All of them have the common element of a person thrust into the center of a situation where other players know what is going on, but the protagonist, and ourselves, are left to wonder about the actions that are taking place.

A quick read, and well-written.

Actually there is nothing new under the sun. Most books are just a variation of the same themes and plot points. Andrew Klaven's latest offering, THE IDENTITY MAN is no exception to this premise. The theme here is "wanted man (John Shannon) gets a new face and a new identity, is relocated to a new city (New Orleans......or its doppelganger) to begin life anew and meets the woman of his dreams". Sound familiar so far?

What is different and compelling about Klaven's approach to this subject matter is that he presents us with a mystery within a mystery as well as some political and cultural questions that confront us on a daily basis.

As for the mystery....it poses numerous questions. For example:"Who is our protagonist's benefactor?" "What is his/her motive for providing Shannon with a second chance?" "Why has this particular city been chosen for Shannon's new beginning"? Additionally, each character in this tale is not your run of the mill good guy/bad guy. These are complex personalities motivated by their individual needs and aspirations. From the foreign sounding plastic surgeon, to the retired teacher, and from the questionably motivated law enforcement officers and local politicos to the street gangs that wreak havoc on the damaged city, Klaven has presented us with not only well develop characters who, like most of us, are plagued by those pesky inner conversations each of us carries on (I believe it's called conscience, or in some cases lack thereof). In doing so he has obliquely encouraged his readers to examine the direction that we are taking not only as individuals, but as a society. He seems to ask if we have all become as skeptical and pessimistic as one of Shannon's acquaintances who took the words of Dr. Martin Luther King - "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice" and perverted that hopeful comment to "The arc of the moral universe is long boy, but it bends toward you getting screwed".

Not the best, but definitely better than most in this genre. 3 ½ stars

Andrew Klavan's IDENTITY MAN is slick thriller full of insights into the human condition. John Shannon is a career criminal who is offered a new life from a stranger while being wanted for a murder he didn't commit. Shannon gets a new face and new identity. A big part of the novel is the unnamed city Shannon lives in. It could be New Orleans , since Shannon arrives during the aftermath of a massive flood that ravaged the city. But the city is ruled by a corrupt, nationally rising politician named Augie Lancaster. Augie has the entire police force under his thumb, including Det. Brick Ramsey.

Shannon slowly builds a new life and gets close to a woman, Teresa, and her son. Shannon , perhaps foolishly, believes he was given his new life with no strings attached. But, soon, it becomes time for him to pay the price, and he soon faces the corruption of the city head on.

I really liked this novel, but admit it might not be for everyone. I don't know if this is more of a literary thriller or what, but the action is a little slower, and the internal thoughts of characters are a lot more upfront. Some readers might not notice it, but if you know Klavan is an outspoken conservative, you'll definitely catch on to his political and even spiritual message in the novel. Some readers won't mind, as I didn't, but it is there so be prepared.

I should also mention that Klavan is writing a young adult series for the Christian market. Fans of those novels should know this book is full of swearing, violence and other situations not found in Christian fiction.

IDENTITY MAN is a thriller with political and social commentary. I really liked it, but I'm a conservative. Liberals may not appreciate it. If you don't care either way, then check this book out. The commentary isn't blatant and the rest of the book is really good.

Klavan tosses out one witty line after another. (Sample: Of course I believe in hell. I work for the government).

That's enough to make the novel enjoyable.

But he's managed to come up with a clever, thrilling plot as well. John Shannon is a man in sorry need of redemption--or something--because his current life is headed straight for disaster.

He has only one more conviction to go before he ends up behind bars forever. Yet he can't seem to stop himself from performing one last robbery. I don't want to give away much of the plot, but let's just say the robbery is not going to go well.

Klavan manages to upend all your expectations, time after time. And one other note: he paints the most astonishing portrait of a city and civilization gone mad, of a place where "women have no virtue and men have no honor". John Shannon finds himself in a hellish, brutal place, where even children can be predators, and yet nobody questions why things turned out this way.

This is one you will want to read.

This book reminded me a lot of some of the early episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation. In those specific shows, everything would be different and the audience would have no clue why everything was different until the last 15 minutes of the show. This book is like that because you do not know what is going on until the last 40 pages.

The story has two storylines that intersect later in the book. Two rogue cops are stalking bad guys, and maybe even good guys, in a city that was ravaged by a flood (New Orleans?). Most of the town has roving criminal gangs that do whatever they want. One of the cops kills a guy named Peterson for apparently no reason and then finds graffitti that states he killed Patterson. This makes him seethe with fury and he is anxious to find the person that knows he killed Patterson.

The other story centers around John Shannon, a petty thief. Shannon and another thief burglarize a home, surprising the owner. When the other thief starts attacking the owner, Shannon turns on him, saving the owner and getting the other thief arrested. The thief turns on Shannon and tells the cops that Shannon committed a murder. This causes Shannon to run from the cops who open a statewide man-hunt for him.

On the run Shannon encounters a mysterious man who calls himself the Identity Man. He talks with a heavy accent and tells Shannon he will make Shannon "a new mang."

It is hard to tell the rest of the plot without spoilers but as one can imagine, the Identity Man changes Shannon's appearance and give him a new identity in the city of the rogue cops. Eventually, their paths will converge but in the meantime Shannon has a chance at turning his life around. He has choices to make which will in fact make him a "new mang" or follow his old identity ways. The Identity Man told him that "identity like stain" so probably he will revert to his old ways.

The book is slow in parts and sometimes frustrating because so much goes on that the reader can't fathom as to its reason. If you wait it out you will be glad because everything is eventually explained and the book builds to a very exciting climax.

I've read most of Andrew Klavan's books and this is one of his best. It's most like "Empire of Lies," his last one for adults--a good story that may be enjoyed strictly as a piece of entertainment, but also full of social commentary that gives it a deeper significance and sharper edge. In the acknowledgments, Klavan thanks Shelby Steele. Anybody who has read Steele's books and essays on white guilt will appreciate how Klavan applies these ideas in his novel, which is set largely in an unnamed city that bears a close (but deliberately inexact) resemblance to post-flood New Orleans. There are lessons here about race relations, urban politics, the media's depravity, and social breakdown.

The writing is good, too. The story moves at a nice clip. Lines like this are both well crafted and pack a punch: "The Government Center was a weirdly living thing pulsing on the dead city, like some kind of exotic spider feeding on the gray, colorless shape of the butterfly wrapped in its web." Even better are the characters. Klavan really gets inside their heads, both heroes and villains, as he probes their motives and explains their actions. Through them, "The Identity Man" becomes a compelling story of disgrace and redemption.

If you've enjoyed Klavan before, you'll enjoy him again. If you haven't tried him previously, "The Identity Man" is a great place to start.

I just finished "The Brothers Karamazov" a few days ago, and I'm pleasantly surprised to note some similarities between that Russian classic and Andrew Klavan's "The Identity Man."

The book is, on the surface, a thriller, which takes place in an unnamed American city probably modeled on Detroit. It opens with a corrupt cop murdering a potential informer, and then suddenly jumps into the world of a small-time thief who is about to risk going to jail for life --- for no comprehensible reason.

It's here that Klavan begins sounding a bit like Dostoyevsky: any sane man would realize that he's facing a "three-strike law" and just refuse the new "job." But our petty thief just can't say no; he's bored, and his "skin is crawling." So he goes along on the new burglary, even though a man he despises is leading him. The caper goes terribly wrong, and suddenly Shannon the thief is on the lam in the most serious and desperate sense.

Then he gets a text message on his cell-phone which kicks the story into high gear.

A few reviewers have noted what they see as holes in the plot. For me, and for most readers, those "holes" will not exist. The "suspension of disbelief" will carry them along just fine. And the ideas will begin to occupy the reader's mind.

What is identity, after all? Where does it come from, and who makes it?

This novel asks: "If your face was changed, along with your name, driver's license, and everything else, including your DNA (not in you, but in government computers) --- well, would YOU still be YOU?" Is your identity something chiseled in stone when you are born, or is it something which you are responsible for?

Our petty thief Shannon reveals himself as no mean artist, a wood-carver who is hired to restore the battered and ruined face of an angel on a wooden altar-piece. Like Michelangelo, he picks a piece of wood because he can suddenly see the face of the angel "hiding" in the wood, waiting to be revealed --- all the artist has to do is chip away the unnecessary wood, to reveal that face latent in the wood.

Much later in the novel, Shannon admits that it is really a fifty-fifty effort: about half of that angel face was latent in the wood, but the other half was living in Shannon's mind.

This winds up being the novel's central metaphor for personal identity: surely, some large portion of our personality is born with us, but after that, shaping our own personality is very much up to us.

The novel is full of characters who fail to realize this central truth, and so I say again that this is a bit like Dostoyevsky, the great Russian prophet ignored in his own country.

An excellent and thought-provoking read!!

I almost gave up on this book a bit over the half way point, because it didn't appear that there was a coherent plot, and very few things made sense. A criminal on the run is given a new face and new identity papers and is dropped into a ruined city run by a corrupt mayor in conjunction with the police department. Even though this fellow is supposed to have a completely new persona, not too long after he arrives the police are breathing down his neck, and he is once again forced to run.

Why this was so isn't really explained until almost 90% of the book is done, and I fear that by that time many people will have stopped reading. That would be too bad, because the last 10% is quite exciting and fast moving, and there is a happy ending. I just wish the author had given a bit more thought to juicing up the first part of the book; it would have made the book as a whole much better

I'm a sucker for 'on the run' stories, which is why I got into this book immediately. Give me a tale where the main character is being chased and I'm hooked. Klavan's one of the most interesting thriller writers working today, given his worldview as a Christian. I'm troubled by his use of language, but whaddya gonna do? As he says, he inhabits a character, and that character does not necessarily talk and act as he, Klavan, would. This problem, in Klavan's case, is neatly solved by his YA series The Homelanders, the third installment of which I'm reading, and enjoying immensely. In it he pours all his talent as a storyteller with none of the nasty language. You can't do f-bombs in YA and not get your books pulled.

I'm not going to do the storyline here- you can find that in the other reviews. Personally, I just want to know if a book or movie is worth reading or seeing. If I'm confident that it is, the less I know about, the more complete is my pleasure as I experience it. That's one reason I'm not a big fan of Roger 'spoil alert' Ebert. (Another is that the dude's political stuff makes me erp.)

What makes Andrew Klavan a great writer is not only his superb prose and pacing, and his really clever plotting. It's his awareness of deeper themes in his stories. In this case, the story behind the story (as he explained in a recent interview on PJTV), is the whole idea of who we are as individuals, and whether or not we can acquire a new identity as citizens of a country that holds out that exact promise for those who come here. (See "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Created Hollywood" by Neal Gabler)

Klavan was raise nominally Jewish; he's one of those rare birds who, being born Jewish, has come to understand the claims of that radical fellow who lived two millennia ago and said he was the Messiah. I was riding my cheap recumbent bike and listening to an MP3 of Romans 9 yesterday and was reminded afresh how difficult, according to the NT, it is for Jews to come to faith in Christ: God has purposely blinded them so that Gentiles like me can have a crack at eternal life. The chapter ends with the promise that 'all Israel shall be saved.' To that, I'm not ashamed to say, praise God

Klavan mentioned in his interview his thoughts about his life as a Christian clashing with his upbringing as a Jew. He really gets into the heart of human existence here, since the NT says that those who are in Christ are 'a new creation.' In his case the contrast is just a little more dramatic, given his religious background.


I really admire his creative genius in hiding, like little nuggets of eternal truth, these concepts in what is superficially a pretty good thriller on its own merits. I'm a committed Christian, and for that reason I carry his symbolism to, what is for me, its logical end point. The ending of the book is a nice picture of the individual finally making it home after going through the rather difficult process of life on this planet. As I said, praise God.