This is the best book I've read so far this year, granted its only the third, but I think It'll be a strong contender far the rest of the year as well. That's for one simple reason, this books complex simplicity. 'I'm Gone' has so much going on in its 195 pages; it's the story of a fifty something womanizer with a bad heart, there are love affairs and hurt feelings, business deals in the world of fine art, travel to exotic places, and encounters with strange people, there are mysteries and disappearances, murder, and even an art heist. For all that activity those 195 pages should feel uncomfortably jammed full of seemingly unconnected events, and under a different writers pen I'm fairly confident I'd be hear saying just that, that this book was the work of a confused an erratic author that was completely unable to decide what sort of book to write, so he just wrote everything. But, I'm not hear saying that, Echenoz has put all these things into a book, a short one at that, and made it fit seamlessly, and that goes back to that complex simplicity I spoke of, because that is life, a lot can happen and some of the time we're at a loss to explain why.
This was the first book I've read by Jean Echenoz, but it will not be that last. Furthermore, I cannot recommend this book anymore fervently, the descriptions are beautiful, the pacing fantastic, and the story itself is great.
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