Eh -- I Don't Need to Snag Smith's Signature

Score The Autograph Man as either a six or a seven based on the Slackers' ten elements of a picaresque novel. Zadie Smith's second novel is set in London, recounting the life of Alex-Li Tandem, a Chinese Jew, and his childhood friends as the age (I won't say as they mature, especially Alex/the naive protagonist) from teens to early 30s. At a wrestling match, Alex meets Joseph who is an avid autograph hound. Although Joseph outgrows this hobby, it becomes Alex's consuming passion/quest, focused exclusively on a reclusive actress named Kitty Alexander whose autographs are non-existent and the subject of many forgeries. Alex's best friend/buddy Adam is an enabler who encourages Alex's drinking and drug habits and tolerates his wanderings/sex adventures with Boot and Honey, betraying his long-suffering, broken-hearted (with a pacemaker) girlfriend Esther. Many bizarre characters populate the novel both from the world of arcana buyers and sellers to a dwarf rabbi (what's with all these dwarfs ... thought I finished them in the Tin Drum!).

Those picaresque elements that are not as apparent or strong revolve around that portion of the plot when Alex meets Kitty, secures her memorabilia for sale, and then profits from a premature announcement of her death. There is no real danger or near escapes here: only opportunities for Alex to learn more about real life. Similarly, there is neither a strong development of his misunderstanding events nor an eventual enlightenment. Alex and Esther argue yet again, Alex perfunctorily recites Kaddish for his dead Chinese father, and Kitty remains in London playing dead. But Smith has constructed the story to foretell such a soft landing, strewing conversations with observations that life is not like a movie and endings aren't neatly sewn up. One of her more clever literary devices is the use of the "International Gesture" as a way to make written dialogue more visual like overhead conversations on the street. OK: now visualize this: my left shoulder curling towards my chest, my head inclining towards my shoulder, in the international gesture of a shrug, the "eh" as my nonverbal book review.