First Person
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
A young and penniless writer, Kif Kehlmann, is rung in the middle of the night by the notorious con man and corporate criminal, Siegfried Heidl. About to go to trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million, Heidl proposes a deal: $10,000 for Kehlmann to ghost write his memoir in six weeks.
But as the writing gets under way, Kehlmann begins to fear that he is being corrupted by Heidl. As the deadline draws closer, he becomes ever more unsure if he is ghost writing a memoir, or if Heidl is rewriting him—his life, his future. Everything that was certain grows uncertain as he begins to wonder: who is Siegfried Heidl—and who is Kif Kehlmann?
By turns compelling, comic, and chilling, First Person is a haunting journey into the heart of our age.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Richard Flanagan’s 2014 Booker Prize winner, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, dealt with the past; with First Person he considers a possible future built on alternative facts, fake identities and charismatic charlatans. The protagonist is struggling novelist Kif Kehlmann, who agrees to ghostwrite the memoir of a notorious con man and gradually becomes overwhelmed by his subject’s slippery, evasive and intimidating personality. First Person raises questions about the relativity of truth—Flanagan’s elegant prose skillfully negotiates the fine line between reality and artifice.
