After a protracted, mysterious illness, fiction/screenwriter Sidney Orr buys a blue Portugese notebook and returns to writing (writes himself a life??), starting w/ a paratext loosely following on a story-w/in-a-story told in Hammet's "Maltese Falcon." Strange events ensue, making Sidney and the reader question future and past, premonition, love, trust, disappearance, and morality.

I personally LOVE Auster's methods, and I never tire of his puzzles. This is the kind of book that frustrates and excites; you want to linger over the parallels; I found myself drawing diagrams on the periphery of my notes re: correlations btw Sidney and Nick, btw Auster himself and Sidney and Trause (anagram of Auster - can't say I picked that up on my first go).

Do words have intrinsic power? What about Chang's statement about his stationary store - "Everything in here important to life." You walk away wondering - what impact exactly did the blue notebook (and Chang) have over the story? What impact did Sidney's imagination have? Is he a reliable narrator? Are the connections btw our subconscious and conscious more than spiderwebs and dreams?