Believe in the wolves

Uneven but highly readable novel ponders the randomness of life.

- CHARLOTTE GRIMSHAW

Three-quarters of the way through Paul Auster's new novel, his protagonist, Sy Baumgartner, pushes aside Mysteries of the Wheel, the book he's been working on, and starts writing an account of a trip he took to Ukraine in 2017. The story is called The Wolves of Stanislav, and it involves Baumgartner travelling into "the bloodlands of Eastern Europe, the central horror-zone of 20th-century slaughter".

Tens of thousands of Jews were murdered here by the Nazis between 1941 and 1943, and if his grandfather hadn't left, Baumgartner would never have been born. He seeks information about his family from a local rabbi, and is told that Auster was a common name among the Jews of Stanislav.

BAUMGARTNER

by Paul Auster (Faber, $36.99)

So, Auster sends his fictional character in search of the history of a family called Auster. This interweaving of material forms the substance of Baumgartner. It's a roughly textured blend of story and ostensible non-fiction, a narrative fusion mingling unfinished manuscripts, poems, autobiographical details, musings, jottings, anecdotes of a long marriage and reflections on an intellectual and writing life.