The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster
(Faber, £16.99)
I don’t think there is any contemporary writer who gets as much fun out of naming his characters as Paul Auster. The three main characters in his new novel are called Wood, Glass (nephew and uncle—resembling respectively the two sides of the family) and Brightman (real name: Dunkel, meaning dark). But the naming isn’t only for fun.
Nathan Glass is the narrator of the book and the compiler of the Follies. He moves to Brooklyn “looking for a quiet place to die” after a career in insurance. The Follies are a collection of notes and anecdotes that he keeps in boxes on his desk. An example of one of Nathan’s own follies is an evening spent trying to retrieve his daughter’s electric shaver after she drops it in the only toilet in the house shortly before a dinner party.
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