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Extremely Good & Incredibly Inventive This may be the first great novel written about September eleventh. Foer invents a great central character - Oskar Schell, an eight-year-old Manhattan boy whose father has died in the World Trade Center. He finds a key in an envelope in his father's closet and the novel is about his journeys to find the lock the key opens and the people he meets along the way. Foer wisely avoids politics in this piece; this book is not about that. Young Oskar considers himself a pacifist and doesn't believe in killing people for anything. As in Everything is Illuminated, Foer has an overriding interest in the holocaust and World War II. In this case, Oskar's grandparents are survivors of the bombing of Dresden and much of the book is their story. Also, as in his previous book, this one employs several first person narrators. Most of the story is told directly from Oskar's perspective, but we also have first-hand accounts "written" by his grandmother and grandfather. What sets Jonathan Safran Foer apart is that he is endlessly innovative. He makes it his life's mission to expand the boundaries of the printed book. He uses every trick he can think of: pictures, code, blank space. If you are unsympathetic to this, you might find it a bit gimmicky, but I found that it made the reading like an Easter egg hunt. The book may not be without it flaws, but it is a funny, provocative, humanistic novel. As Oskar says, "Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped."