So here we are looking at the big picture

The Big Picture by Douglas Kennedy

In a nutshell: following an unfortunate series of events, Ben Bradford- Wall St lawyer and family man- has to fake his death and become another, leaving everything including his family and identity behind.

The blurb: written as a first person account by Ben Bradford, the first third of the book starts with an overview of his life as a successful lawyer complete with big salary, nice house, 2 kids, a wife who collects furniture and an interest in photography. A dramatic event however means that Ben has to quickly give up his comfortable yet dull life, and disappear without anyone knowing. He takes on a new identity and settles in a new environment in a small town in Montana, and the rest of this book deals with the theme of identity, i.e. are we who we say we are? who we'd like to be? are we a sum of our actions? and so on. Ultimately the real page-turning element here is the tension that builds up as one realises that taking on a new identity involves a lot more than a name change, especially when it's such a small world and no man is an island.

IMHO this is a fun, easy and pretty compulsive read. Though it is quite funny, the real grip is the fear that at some point our hero will be found out. Part road story, part surrealist coming-of-age story, part comedy, it has a similiar tone as The Dead Heart by the same author (read review here). Recommended a a nice book to curl up with in the evening.