Hey, I know Paul Auster has been...in the past...an extraordinary writer. But this book is sloppy to the point of insulting. Lots of tantalizing leads (hence the 2 stars), but absolutely no intelligent follow-up. And he doesn't even bother to TRY making the plot lines cohere. He simply lets them drop from sight. And the whole "climax" with Grace and Trause's 2-dimensional son? What inspired that bit of B-grade TV melodrama? Mr Auster is apparently not very concerned about delivering to his readers, folks. Very sad, really.