A review by nichecase
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith

4.0

much of the book was a genius evisceration of celebrity culture: the characters were all fully-fledged and interesting and played against a madcap and genuinely funny plot. however, at times it felt that smith did not trust the reader enough to keep track of her themes and so absolutely beat us over the head with certain motifs. ("the world is broken"/things being broken comes to mind - though i've come away from the autograph man with a deeper appreciation of kabbalah, i think that was solidified by about the second instance of "the world is broken".) conversely, some themes were underdeveloped - i was always expecting male friendship to come to a more satisfying conclusion, even if it only were to

Spoiler

explore the homoeroticism of it, which was always bubbling around in the novel

. if it weren't for this uneven pressure applied to the themes and motifs, this would definitely be a 5/5 read.