Some of us have often wondered how good Paul Auster would turn out to be if he actually wrote a proper novel for once instead of another volume of experimental creative-writing coursework; if he offered us a square meal instead of intellectual sushi. Well, heaven knows why — friendly competition with his bestselling wife Siri Hustvedt, perhaps — but he has gone and done that very thing.

His new novel still features obtrusive formal devices, but they are of an established and familiar kind, almost as old as fiction itself. A chap called Adam tells us how, as a New York student in 1967, he encountered a suave Swiss-French visiting professor with an unexpectedly violent side. Then the frame changes and a famous American writer, Jim Freeman, explains that his old college buddy Adam, now dying of leukaemia, has just sent him the foregoing pages, the beginning of a memoir.

Adam has got blocked, but with Jim’s advice he more or less concludes the story in the time left to him. Jim agrees with Adam’s sister to publish it with all the names changed. (We are obviously, but fictionally, meant to think that Jim is Auster.) He also tracks down a surviving witness in Paris, where Adam’s account reached its climax, to tie up some loose ends.

The plot is difficult to discuss because of the surprises and delayed revelations, but it is all riveting. The final twist is a standard one (you find it, for instance, in Permissible Limits by Graham Hurley, a good British thriller from 10 years ago) but is none the less effective. The voices of Adam, Jim and Cécile, a French woman, are subtly graded, and there is careful attention to detail: the title word appears in the text just once, on page 15 — “that invisible cauldron of self-regard and ambition that simmers and burns in each one of us”. This is not an over-heavy clue because the book is not about ambition so much as hidden aspects of the personality in general. Vice and weirdness, even murder, may wear a civil mask.

The control of tone is so fine that, when you read a queasy passage of Adam’s that makes you think, “Hang on, this is a bit of a fantasy,” you later find that Jim thinks the same; but he cannot be sure, and nor can you.

So, how good does Auster turn out to be? Pretty much as good as his admirers always said. That combination of scrupulous style, psychological depth, story value and parable-like undertones is masterly, but the fans themselves may prefer the sushi books.

The Invisible by Paul Auster
Faber £16.99 pp304

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