I'm wavering between 3 and 5 stars, so picked 4. The first part, titled "Portrait of an Invisible Man" is fabulous. It's the first 69 pages where Auster, as he cleans out his recently deceased father's hosue, thinks about his father, investigates his past, recognizes, at least, that their relationship was stronger than he always thought---that he is much like his father in many ways. Nothing new there in a memoir by a son about a father, but this one is so beautifully written that I was all set to add the book to my Autobiography class this fall.

But then I read the second half titled "The Book of Memory" and here (pp.71-173, so the bulk of the book) Auster goes all post-modern on us. While the first memoir plays with time, geography, perspective, it does so in a way that doesn't detract from the story. Yet the second story, with letters instead of people's names, does so to such a degree that we just don't give a damn about A or his son D or whatever letter he was. There are moments that stand out: his grandfather learning magic for his grandson, and becoming basically Mr. Magic for the senior set; the prostitute he meets in a bar in NYC--the scene works, it's powerful. The French poet who remembers every detail of A's advisor's apartment from a year earlier---that power of memory, as the title warns us. But that's all I remember, which is not a good thing since I just finished the book last night.

Perhaps it deserves another chance, though: I'll give it that.