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July 21, 2003-9:05 p.m.
THE AUTOGRAPH MAN THE AUTOGRAPH MAN, Zadie Smith�s second book, is the story of Alex-Li Tandem. Alex-Li, like so many of Smith�s characters, is an amalgam. He is half-Chinese and half-Jewish. Alex-Li�s beloved father dies at a wrestling match. He had taken Alex and some of his friends from the synagogue to the match in an effort to expose him more to the mainstream. While they are at the match, Alex�s father befriends the boy next to them, Joseph, who is an autograph collector and will become a life-long friend of Alex�s. It is through Joseph�s influence that Alex becomes a professional autograph collector. The book fast-forwards to Alex-Li as an adult and a collector. He is obsessed with getting the autograph of Kitty Alexander, a former film star who is well known for the few autographs she�s given out over the years. For years, Alex has written to Kitty in care of her fan club. At first the letters were like most fan mail but after a while they changed to more poetic messages, in which Alex attempted to distill the essence of Kitty. For years, Alex-Li has written to Kitty and one day during a particularly heinous acid trip, a genuine Kitty Alexander autograph comes into his possession. He has no recollection how he came to possess this autograph. Alex-Li then leaves London for a New York City autograph convention and while there he plans to seek Kitty out. This trip is an odyssey of sorts for him. He has left his girlfriend, Esther, in England where she is undergoing an operation to have her pacemaker replaced. His friends Adam, a self-styled Jewish mystic of sorts and also Esther�s brother, and Rubenfine, now a rabbi, are after Alex to have a Kaddish for his father. In the middle of all of this, Alex goes to New York and what happens there will shape everything when he returns.
**Disclaimer: All characters in this diary are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, real or imagined, is purely coincidental and unintentional.** |
