This counterfactual novel, in which Bush versus Gore led to civil war and September 11 never happened, isn't a gimmicky departure for Paul Auster, but a characteristically Austerian dream vision that allows a man in deep, private mourning to come to terms with the shocks of his own life. Auster's most fully realized work in years incorporates national politics into his fictional world much the same way Philip Roth set his own obsessions against the backdrop of Clinton's impeachment in The Human Stain.