A review by ashkane
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith

2.0

Of all of Zadie Smith’s fiction, this is the one I like least. I has a good beginning hook, but then I struggled through most of the rest. It’s the Judaism that pulled me out of the story - I’m goy (I learned), and the second biggest character in the book is Jewish faith and customs, so I was having to look everything up, re-read conversations, and still wasn’t really grasping the main themes because they were buried in religious jargon. There were interesting characters for sure, but not the protagonist himself. In the end (after a hurried wrapping up), I’m left feeling I got nothing out of the experience of reading this, which I’ve never had happen with Smith (a favorite).