Synopsis Alex-li Tandem, whose mother is Chinese and father (who died young) was Jewish, collects the autographs of celebrities. He has a massive crush on an aging movie star named Kitty Alexander, and in the course of searching for her autograph he encounters adventures that include the mammoth Autographicana Fair in New York. A New York Times Notable Book for 2002.

Publisher's Note “Intelligent. . . . Exquisitely clever. . . . An ironic commentary about fame, mortality, and the triumph of image over reality.” —The Boston Globe

The introduction, discussion questions, suggested reading list, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of The Autograph Man, Zadie Smith’s remarkable novel about life, death, and the search for the ultimate signature.

Industry reviews "The management of irony and sincerity--their proper apportioning, their containment and release--is the vexed issue of this novel, as of so many contemporary works. THE AUTOGRAPH MAN has no moral centre because that place is so neglected in Smith's uncertain wandering. She seems to like Alex much more than we do, to find in him resources which are invisible to the reader. Fatally, she can't decide about the extent of his corruption by popular culture....[I]f Smith is offering up her own novel as an example of the very corruption afflicting her characters, one would have to say that to poison a whole novel is a very lengthy way of making a point about a single modern germ....There are moments...of precise, vivid, quick prose, rich but never unbudgeted in its wealth, exact, funny, alert. Smith's ear for speech is superb....But these virtues are not nearly enough to rescue this novel." London Review of Books - James Wood (10/03/2002)

"THE AUTOGRAPH MAN is more entertaining than lots of novels, but it doesn't come close to the divine mess of WHITE TEETH....If THE AUTOGRAPH MAN ultimately sinks, it is nearly saved by Smith's buoyant prose." New York Times Book Review - Daniel Zalewski (10/06/2002)