The Autograph Man
by Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith's second novel is about a Chinese-Jewish autograph hunter who is turned on by drugs, sex and organised religion. His search for his heart's desire takes in both London and New York.
The Autograph Man is Zadie Smith's whirlwind tour of celebrity and our fame-obsessed times. Following one Alex-Li Tandem - a twenty-something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion - it takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire. Exposing our misconceptions about our idols - about ourselves - Zadie Smith delivers in The Autograph Man a brilliant, unforgettable tale about who we are and what we really want to be.
Publisher: Penguin
Extract
We live in a world of signs. But not everybody has to trade them in…
Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs – a small blip in a huge worldwide network of desire. It is his business to hunt for names on paper, collect them, sell them, occasionally fake them, and all to give the people what they want: a little piece of Fame. But what does Alex want? Only the return of his father, the reinstatement of some kind of all-powerful benevolent God-type-figure, the end of religion, something for his headache, three different girls, infinite grace and the rare autograph of forties movie actress Kitty Alexander. With fries.
The Autograph Man is a deeply funny, existential tour around the hollow things of modernity – celebrity, cinema and the ugly triumph of symbol over experience.
Through London and then New York, Alex is sent on a paper-trail, searching for the only autograph that ever mattered to him, resisting the mystical lure of Kabbalah and Zen, and avoiding all collectors, conmen and interfering rabbis who would put themselves in his path. Pushing against the tide of his generation, Alex-Li is on his way to finding enlightenment, otherwise known as some part of himself that cannot be signed, celebrated or sold…
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