I Am No One by Patrick Flanery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
While this novel is essentially a thriller it is smart, thought-provoking and layered.
Jeremy O’Keefe is an unlikeable American university professor who has taught ten years at Oxford and has recently returned to teach in the US, ostensibly to be closer to the daughter he abandoned just prior to the 9/11 attacks. He receives troubling anonymous packages and warnings and soon realizes that he’s under surveillance, but by whom, and why? As the story unfolds, one wonders just how unreliable of a narrator he is. The reader sees that he has continually made ambiguous choices, yet he seems blithely unaware. Is he this stupid or is there more that he is up to?
I love how the author layers in the theme of surveillance, from Professor O’Keefe’s area of specialty (the Stasi in East Germany) to the mysterious new artist his daughter’s art gallery is featuring, to the new phone his daughter has given him. Jeremy has a peeping tom, yet he is a peeping tom himself.
Sharp, articulate and completely absorbing. It makes me think of how many ways all of us are being watched and how easy it would be to build a case of “traitor” against just about anyone if there was enough will and malice to do so. O’Keefe is indeed No One but also everyone.
I found myself pondering the nuances and layers of this novel long after I reached the end.
Thank you Net Gallery and Algonquin Books for the review copy.
