I play "Who Am I?" with Jennifer Egan

Look at Me ***1/2
by Jennifer Egan

The peremptory title of Jennifer Egan's novel, "Look at Me," invites you to play a game of "Who am I?" with the characters.

All the people in this novel are plagued by some sort of identity problem. Charlotte the model has lost her face in a car accident and now struggles with the fact that she is completely unrecognizable. Not horrifying in any way, perhaps as beautiful as she once was, but in an entirely different way. But having used her face as her livelihood for so many years, she can't quite figure out who she is now.

Charlotte the teenager reinvents herself at a new high school after a disastrous sexual encounter at her old one.

The enigmatic "Z," a sleeper terrorist has assimilated so well into American life that he has begun to lose his original identity and sense of purpose.

Moose, the blockheaded high school football hero morphs into a brilliant and and entirely nutty college professor.

As the plot weaves the characters together, characters not only struggle with their own identities but those of others. None of these characters is exactly who he or she seems to be to someone else.

"Look at Me" is, at heart, a novel of ideas, an exploration of what identity means in the early 21st century. Toward the end it veers into dystopian territory. The skillful plotting and attention to detail make the novel perfectly readable and thought-provoking. But the novel fails to engage on any kind of emotional level. The characters are not so much real people as emblems of the way modern life erodes identity. It's all fascinating, but in the end, somewhat emotionally arid.

One closes this novel thinking "glad I'm not them" rather than turning the "Who am I" game on himself.