Synopses & Reviews
From the Man Booker Prize-winning author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, the hypnotic tale of a ghost writer writing the memoir of a notorious con man, and the chilling events that unfold as their lives become increasingly intertwined.
Kif Kehlmann, a young, penniless writer, is rung in the middle of the night by the notorious con man and corporate criminal, Siegfried Heidl. About to go to trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million, Heidl offers Kehlmann the job of ghost writing his memoir. He has six weeks to write the book, for which he’ll be paid $10,000.
But as the writing gets under way, Kehlmann begins to fear that he is being corrupted by Heidl. As the deadline draws closer, he becomes ever more unsure if he is ghost writing a memoir, or if Heidl is rewriting him — his life, his future. Everything that was certain grows uncertain as he begins to wonder: Who is Siegfried Heidl — and who is Kif Kehlmann?
As time runs out, as Kehlmann’s world feels it is hurtling toward a catharsis, one question looms above all others: What is the truth?
By turns compelling, comic, and chilling, this is a haunting journey into the heart of our age.
Review
“An acerbic exploration of how the contemporary world came to be defined by lies, deceit, and obfuscation...Full of hilarious asides, this sonorous, blackly comic novel offers searing insight into our times.” Booklist (Starred)
Review
“Flanagan writes with a searing truth...First Person is both comic and frightening. At times I caught a glimpse of Money-era Martin Amis...And there’s a hint, too, of an epochal gloom that is redolent of The Great Gatsby...There are also passages touched with the virtuosity that shone so brightly in The Narrow Road that are pure Flanagan...First Person is studded with sharp, breath-catching observations about the finite nature of life.” Financial Times
Review
“First Person is a serious treatment of important modern issues (corporate corruption, exploitation of trust, the impudent dismissal of truth).” The Sunday Times
Review
“A smart, slippery novel pitched somewhere between book-world satire, psychological thriller, and state-of-Australia analysis...Electric.” Daily Mail
Synopsis
Kif Kehlmann, a young, penniless writer, thinks he's finally caught a break when he's offered $10,000 to ghostwrite the memoir of Siegfried "Ziggy" Heidl, the notorious con man and corporate criminal. Ziggy is about to go to trial for defrauding banks for $700 million; they have six weeks to write the book.
But Ziggy swiftly proves almost impossible to work with: evasive, contradictory, and easily distracted by his still-running "business concerns"--which Kif worries may involve hiring hitmen from their shared office. Worse, Kif finds himself being pulled into an odd, hypnotic, and ever-closer orbit of all things Ziggy. As the deadline draws near, Kif becomes increasingly unsure if he is ghostwriting a memoir, or if Ziggy is rewriting
him--his life, his future, and the very nature of the truth.
By turns comic, compelling, and finally chilling, First Person is a haunting look at an age where fact is indistinguishable from fiction, and freedom is traded for a false idea of progress.
About the Author
Richard Flanagan's five previous novels — Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould’s Book of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist, and Wanting — have received numerous honors and are published in 42 countries. He won the Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. He lives in Tasmania.
Richard Flanagan on PowellsBooks.Blog
First Person is about the strangeness of writing, its costs, its impossibility. Maybe it’s also an argument for the truth of which novels speak. Perhaps it is about the necessity of such truth in our age when the very idea of truth is itself under attack...
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