As PAUL AUSTER'S new novel, "Man in the Dark," opens, August Brill, 73, knows well that every member of his small family is in bad shape. Worried, grieving, in pain, they reflect the condition of the United States, mired in a pointless war that magnifies rather than relieves the dangers it was meant to address.
Nevertheless, Brill's first-person narration maintains an even, almost idle, tone as each member of the family does something or other to pass the days. Brill and his granddaughter, Katya, critique old movies. (She has dropped out of film school.) His daughter, Miriam, works on a book. Nights are the problem -- Brill is beset with insomnia. In lieu of sleep, he concocts a story about an alternative reality in which the Iraq war is taking place in America: Various regions have seceded, and all sorts of services once taken for granted, like television and Internet access, are no longer available. His protagonist is a young man named Owen Brick. Brick's antagonist is a man named Frisk.
Auster's narrative flips back and forth between Brick's story and Brill's personal thoughts. When we first meet Brick, he is trapped in a deep hole, with no memory of how he got there. He is rescued, only to find that the war-torn world he inhabits is not at all like the America he remembers. Moreover, he is expected to execute the assassination of a complete stranger.
Brill, Brick, Frisk, darkness, metafiction, sinuous and elegant style. Yup, it's Paul Auster.
The Brick narrative is the one that builds suspense. The character is not prepared to understand his situation, but his enemies don't care about that: He's expected to follow orders, or to face punishment if he does not. His new world is chaotic; he has no idea who the good guys or the bad guys are. He is left in the dark, to decide between the two baldest choices, murder and suicide.
A narrative built of layers and layers of disorientation is not new for Auster -- this is, in fact, his specialty. It used to be that his young men were disoriented and that their disorientation afforded the reader a new way of seeing the world. Now it is his old men who are disoriented, but their way of seeing the world is more weary than fresh. Frankly, this book could be funnier. Or darker. Or meaner. Or something.
