I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in order to provide an honest review.

The blurb for this book indicated a Faustian horror novel - “Six weeks to write for your life... [a] demonic subject” - which is very misleading. There’s definitely a flavour of Faust to the novel, it just isn’t fully realised; the existence of a bargain is hinted at, but never confirmed.

Aside from that, it all got a bit ‘meta’. The novel is about a writer who can’t finish his novel accepting a job as a con-man’s ghost-writer. As such, there’s plenty of discussion about the nature of being a writer, about fiction and fact, and even a nod to reviewers who might be tempted to leave a glowing review on account of being too bored to finish it.

(Disclaimer: I did in fact read every word!)

It gets even more meta when realising that the novel about a novelist writing an autobiography for a crook is based on the author’s own experience of being a budding novelist who ghost-wrote the autobiography of Australia’s greatest con man.

The prose is clunky, weighed down with over complicated sentences, and convoluted: presumably this is Flanagan making Kif write this way, but it remains awkward to read. Nihilism pervades the book, as does a sense of despair.

On the whole, it’s not a book I would choose to read, but I would consider gifting it to fans of this style of literature.

Curious, almost a metanovel with very persuasive first person narrator's voice. Ghost writing a con man's story in his own voice, except his identity is constantly morphing into someone else, not always rationally. Our narrator is under great financial pressure at home, down to last hundreds .. so since the con man won't tell his story (he's rolling in illicitly acquired money and the publishers want THAT story .. but he's not telling). Our narrator's solution is perfectly in accord with con man ethos - but I won't reveal .. greatly entertaining and even thought provoking.

This was a long, slow read for me. The prose is turgid and intense, like wading through treacle looking for gems. Thankfully, there are quite a few. Wry, reflective, psychological observations on life worth dredging for. But it meant I grew impatient and risked losing the thread of conversation midst the story's divergences.

We meet horribly memorable characters who insinuate their way into our psyche. The tale is told by dispirited writer, Kif, longing for a career breakthrough, jumping at the chance to ghostwrite a memorable memoir for an established publishing company. Heidl, whose memoir Kif is attempting to write, is an elusive, enigmatic trickster and financial fraudster, waiting to face punishment for his crimes.

He is compellingly creepy, inveigling his way under Kif's skin, succeeding in drawing out a sneaky kind of admiration for his mesmerising manner, chameleon character and ability to dodge all direct questions, as well as revulsion for how he spooks, deceives and bankrupts people.

Heidl has the best lines, though Kif's thoughts are often delightfully drawn. The book is well written in places but it wasn't a riveting read for me. However, it draws the reader in with a kind of compulsive magnetism. In his attempt to ghostwrite the memoir in a concertinaed time frame, Kif is sucked into Heidl's power, consumed by his outlook on life and finds it darkly infiltrating and distorting his own.

When we finally reach the end of what feels like a marathon read, it leaves an unsatisfactory taste in the mouth, as though Heidl's wrongdoings and the general lack of a clear moral compass in the major characters has infected us. I felt like I was coming up for air after being incarcerated.

There is no comfortable resolution or getting away from the pollution that inhabits this book like a bad smell. The novel lingers as an unwanted, unforgettable dark shadow in the background of my mind, which makes the author successful, if that was his aim.

I am so sorry, I have made numerous attempts to make progress with this book in the hope that it will hook me in but all to no avail, it's just not for me

I'm sorry Netgalley & Richard Flanagan, but I have to admit defeat on this one, I read a few chapters but I have no idea whats going on as it jumps all over the place and I can't take to the characters so I'm going to leave this one but as guilty as i feel you did ask for my unbiased opinion.

A book set in that mythical place known as a publishing house. Young and penniless editor Kif Kehlmann has been hired by the publishing house to write the autobiography of criminal Siegfried Heidl. Unfortunately for Kehlmann, Heidl won't tell him anything initially - at least not anything tangible he can put in the book. And if he can't write the autobiography, he won't get paid. Not getting paid is a big deal for Kehlmann (well for most of us).

Kehlmann is charged by the big boss of the publishing house to write something sexy and exciting, something that will sell bucketloads. There you go with your commentary on the state of the book/publishing industry - the blockbuster versus the literary tome, and how you have to sell a lot of the former to even think about publishing the writer.

First Person is not an easy read. It breaks all the rules they tell you in writing school. There is so much unnecessary detail, the story takes a long time to get anywhere, it goes off in tangents, it isn't concise, it's so slow and heavy to read. It's the kind of book you put down, try again a while late, put down again, try again, and so on.

When - after much effort on the part of the reader - you get to any of the good stuff, it's very convoluted and the humour is... well not that funny. It's billed as a chilling book, but I think you'd have to have a very low tolerance to any thrills to find this chilling.

Kif Kehlmann is a struggling writer, taking on small jobs to make ends meet as economic crisis hits Tasmania (where he lives) and Australia. His partner Suzy is pregnant and expecting twins alongside their three year old daughter Bo although she is encouraging of Kif's efforts to write his great literary novel.
When an old friend Ray, with whom he'd shared many a dangerous and often illegal adventure in younger days mentions that his 'boss' Siegfried Heidl is looking for a writer to assist with his memoirs Kif is initially hostile. After all a ghost writer of a notorious thief and fraudster would not do his credentials as a worthy novelist much good. But when the publishers offer 10,000 Kif finally agrees.
But although Heidl is full of himself in many respects and seems to have Ray firmly under his control, Kif finds himself drawn into a world that threatens his own personal life and his belief in the written word to really 'tell a story'.
Flanagan has lots to say about the world of publishing - I loved the dodgy Gene Paley trying to make maximum profit from his 'celebrity' before his trial. Kif certainly is a character who draws you into the plot and after perhaps a slow explanatory start regarding the relationship between Kif and Ray, the growing impatience of Heidl and the discovery that his life has more to reveal beyond lies and crimes there is much to like in this novel.
I didn't feel totally immersed in Australia or Tasmania beyond the drinking and the dubious deals but then in Heidl's world the literary and cultural ideas don't exactly form the prime motive for his life to be regaled in Kif's book.
It's good to read something I wouldn't normally look to pick up and I can understand why Flanagan has such a reputation as a writer.

I'm afraid this one is not for me. Although I enjoyed the linguistic style and the often clever writing, I found the time shifts confusing. I persevered because of the language, but eventually realised I didn't really care for any of the characters, or was bothered about what happened to them. On the whole they were either unpleasant or depressing.
If you can engage with the characters, I am sure you will enjoy the book.

It appears that the premise of this story is taken directly from a real life experience of the author.
Richard Flanagan was broke, labouring to make money and his wife was pregnant with twins, when he was offered $10000 to ghostwrite the autobiography of one of Australia’s most famous conmen, John Friedrich.

He had only six weeks to do so, as Friedrich was due to stand trial in a massive fraud case. However, Friedrich committed suicide three weeks into the process.

Richard Flanagan’s novel takes place in an almost identical setting. Kif, a struggling writer focused on somehow providing for his family, is offered a deal to ghostwrite the life story of infamous conman Ziggy Heidl. However, Ziggy has little intention of telling Kif much at all.

The book recounts how, day after day, Ziggy evades Kif’s questions about his life and how Kif becomes increasingly desperate to extract some facts from him. When he does manage to grab some of Ziggy’s time, between Ziggy’s frequent ‘business’ meetings, Kif starts to realise that he is going to have to concoct much of the book himself.

Against this backdrop are Kif’s increasing fear that becoming involved with Ziggy in any way is dangerous and his growing awareness of just what type of man Ziggy is and what he wants from him.

Richard Flanagan explores many themes in this book - the creation of alternative truths, man's gullibility and the vagaries of the publishing world are amongst them.

I loved Richard Flanagan’s writing style, but I was challenged by the repetitive nature of Kif’s repeated efforts to get Ziggy to talk about his life. And I did not enjoy examining the depths of an amoral life and the feelings that arise in Kif as he is manipulated by Ziggy at such length and in such detail. Well and effectively written, but the book was too dark and disturbing for me to gain any enjoyment from.

Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Richard Flanagan has written a smart, comic and intelligent satirical fable for our era, set in Australia. To some extent it is a blend of fact and fiction that draws on the author's well known experience of ghost writing a memoir for a con man in the 1990s. Flanagan mocks and incisively skewers the publishing industry. Kif Kehlmann is an unpublished Tasmanian writer in dire financial straits. His wife, Suzy, is expecting twins and they already have a child. He finds himself in Melbourne, having a $10, 000 contract to ghost write the memoir of the notorious con man and fraudster, Siegfried Heidl (Ziggy), within six weeks. The two men find themselves dependent on each other, with their fates intertwined. Heidl proves to be the slipperiest of customers, disinclined to offer any personal information, throwing out the odd bones that prove to be nebulous and hard to pin down. Kif struggles to write anything of value whilst being harried by the monstrous publisher.

I was amused by the picture of the publisher, Gene Paley, terrified of literature with its allegories, symbolism, tropes of time dancing, often lacking the logical structure of a beginning and an end. Paley is scared because literature does not sell, whereas celebrity memoirs and other superficial books make money. And Paley is all about the money, and he wants Kif to understand that there is no money in writing well, only in writing badly. Heidl claims to be Australian even though he has a strong German accent. He alludes to working for the CIA and mentions Laos, FRG and Chile, and that his codename was Iago. However, nothing adds up and Heidl talks of the invented lives of the famous, where the achievement invents the life it needs. Kif is drawn to and beguiled into the life of Heidl as he writes a fictional memoir, caught by the glamour of the rich and powerful, infected by their corruption. He begins to understand that Heidl may actually be guilty of far more heinous crimes that those he is charged with.

Flanagan weaves a dark story about identity, a ghostwriter performing a conjuring trick, an illusion of a life that is fictitious. It asks the questions, what is truth and what is fiction in our world? I did like the symbolism of the codename of Iago for Heidl and the portrayal of Paley, a man only interested in the badly written and the money it makes for him. Kif finds the memoir puts him on a voyage of discovery about who he is and is instrumental in the trajectory of the path his life takes later. This is a novel that catches the zeitgeist of our contemporary post truth world with its fake news. A brilliant and highly recommended read. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC..

“It’s a very strange time where fictions are presented to us as realities, where reality seems fictional, and it seems to me there’s no better way to write about that than to write a story about what lies are, what fiction is, and to use the form of the novel to do it.”

This is how Richard Flanagan himself sums up what his new novel is about. I might add that apart from being an allegory on the age of post-truth, "First Person" is also a book about the nature of evil, and how we get drawn to it.

Flanagan's protagonist Kif Kehlmann is an aspiring writer, living in a downtrodden neighborhood in Tasmania and trying to make ends meet as an unskilled worker. He is already the father of young Bo, and his wife is now pregnant with twins which puts additional financial pressure on him. When Kehlmann is offered to ghostwrite the autobiography of infamous criminal Ziggy Heidl, he is at first hesitant, but finally takes on the job and gets more and more drawn into the world of the man who carried out the biggest con job in Australian history. But not only is Heidl extremely difficult to work with, in order to earn the $ 10,000 the publishing house promised him, Kehlmann also needs to complete his task within six weeks, as Heidl is facing trial.

Flanagan has written this novel in the style of a memoir, and there actually is a true story at the core of this fictional account: In 1991, Flanagan himself was offered $10,000 to write the autobiography of Australian conman John Friedrich within six weeks. In the third week, Friedrich killed himself, only days before he would have had to stand trial on charges relating to the $296m fraud of the National Safety Council of Australia. Flanagan, broke and with his wife expecting twins, had to finish the book nonetheless (and he did: http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/28...).

Based on this set-up, Flanagan mixes fact and fiction, the line between the two becoming partly unrecognizable for the reader. Kehlmann meets himself while writing about Heidl, the book's narrator mirrors its author, the subject the narrator writes about (Heidl) mirrors the subject the author himself wrote about in a former book (Friedrich) - and of course Flanagan still writes about Friedrich by writing about Kehlmann writing about Heidl!

And it does not stop here: The many hours Kehlmann and Heidl spend together while working on the book are like a chamber drama, with Heidl engaging Kehlmann in his philosophical musings, citing Nietzsche, elaborating on his own grim, nihilistic ideas, and never giving enough information for Kehlmann to write a consistent story without throwing in inventions of his own making: "They were arabesques of nonsense, but there was music in them. It was almost jazz. He was Thelonius Monk and I just tried to hang in, playing around his parts, filling in all the notes and beats he didn't bother with (...)."

Not that Heidl would care about the accuracy of the final account: "(...) there is no truth, only interpretations. That's why we do better liberated from the truth, he went on. Believe me." What counts, according to Heindl, is how good the story is: "Australia is a story, politics is a story, religion is a story, money is a story and the ASO (his company) was a story. The banks just stopped believing in my story. And when belief dies, nothing is left."

Flanagan also transfers this idea to literature itself, proclaiming ours to be the age of the literary selfie: "Everyone wants to be the first person. Autobiography is all we have", it says in the novel, only to dismiss this notion: "Life isn't an onion to be peeled, a palimpsest to be scraped back to some original, truer meaning. It's an invention that never ends." We are more than just one thing, Flanagan states, and literature reminds us of that. The way the publishing industry works is portrayed in harsh satirical strokes though: "If you can only learn to write badly enough, you can make a great deal of money."

All in all, Flanagan wrote a dark, challenging story, trying to find explanations for how we ended up where we are now: Was the crime Heidl committed and, moreover, the attitude he displayed a starting point for what was to come after him? Is it not the brutality itself, but the fact that we accept it that lies at the core of evil? I am not sure whether I fully agree with Flanagan, but he certainly found an interesting, artistic way to to contemplate our state of affairs.

I found the beginning of this book a little slow but I was very glad I stuck with it. Kif agrees to write the memoirs of a fraudster called Heidle. The middle section of the book was very interesting and pulled me into the story. Sadly the last part of the book when Kif became famous seemed as though it was there to make up the word count. Altogether an interesting read and the author certainly has a great command of the English language.

This is a clever interesting read - a satire on the world of publishing and ghost writing that asks questions about fiction and fact and the difference, or otherwise, between them.
Tasmanian Kif accepts (in desperation ) a commission to ghost write the memorise of a con man, Ziggy. Much of the novel is about Kif trying to get to know his subject, meeting a lot of publishing 'types' along the way (not a very attractive bunch.)
The pace was a bit slow in parts, perhaps some of the publishing types could have helped with editing, but enjoyable.

I was looking forward to this – a previous book (A narrow road to the deep north) got great reviews. But sadly this book did not work for me.
Sure, it’s well written, and in fact peppered with witty linguistic jokes. But if just felt rather by-the –numbers. None of the characters really felt read to be, but were rather stereotypical and the plot very slow moving. The novel is a mix of genres – part musing on writing and the publishing industry, part suspense story, and I believe partly autobiographical.
Maybe its me, but I also feel that it is a little indulgent when writers write books about struggling writers. If Flanagan wants to take a pop at ‘the trade’, that’s fine – but if you get out a soapbox, you better make sure the novel is a darn good one to balance the preaching. I read, hoping that suddenly it would get going, but it felt rather a repetitive plod. Once I found myself skipping over sections, I knew it was over for me.
Certainly there are interesting things going on here. The reader (and the main protagonist) is faced with trying to uncover who Heidl is, and what intrigue is at play – is all as it seems? But the pacing is too slow to build any momentum.
It’s not a bad book, but neither is it an unmissable read.

I was unable to get very far with this book due to several problems which should have been edited out and which take the reader's mind off the story as they have to re-read sentences. There are a great deal of over-long and confusing sentences - some with too many commas, some not enough to make the meaning clear. Then there are proper nouns missing capital letters. And just too many words to allow the writing to flow. I feel this needs another edit to make it readable because the way it is written at the moment has slowed the story to a halt. It's like battling through a jungle with a machete - exhausting!

In this devastating satire on the world of publishing, Flanagan has sly dig at the latest cult of memoir as fiction, and the blurring of reality with fake news and post truth.
His narrator Kif, while undergoing a crisis of confidence in his ability to write a novel, agrees to act as a ghost writer for the memoirs of the notorious con man Heidle – a man as shifty, slippery and cunning as a snake oil salesman, employing suggestion, evasion, rumour and downright lies in his biographical accounts.

Through this unholy Faustian alliance with his subject, Kif becomes drawn in and ultimately enmeshed in Heidle’s shady accounts of espionage, arms deals and political corruption – all the while uncertain of what is fiction and what is fact, but increasingly having to turn to invention – “making things up” as much as a writer of fiction must do.

I loved all the writerly conceits Flanagan displays via Kif - the puns (“the lies that bind”, ghost writing as “an I for an I”) - the aphorisms (“Flattery isn't foolproof but it is proof of fools”) – the zeugmas (“coming back to the office and to my senses”).
But the piece on the drawn-out horror of Kif’s wife giving birth to twins is brought to life as authentically and graphically as only a skilled dramatist could achieve - and shows that Flanagan is not just a conjuror of words.

I tried reading this book but gave up about 100 pages in. It was very hard to understand and I just didn't engage with the story or the style of writing at all and found it very hard to follow. Very disappointing. Sorry

Many thanks to Netgalley and Richard Flanagan for the copy of this book. I agreed to give my unbiased opinion voluntarily.

The practical objective learnt from this book is never to ghost write for anyone unless you have cast iron guarantees of subject co-operation. Several characters were frustrating, as I think they were meant to be and certainly kept me reading until the end.

Although very different from his previous novel, although clearly showing some semi autobiographical elements focusing as it does on the trials of a writer for hire, this story of a struggling writer taking on a job as a ghost writer for a mysterious con man and white collar criminal, was an intriguing read. Although the ending was perhaps not as illuminating as I was hoping, as it left some questions unanswered, the journey up to that point following the struggles of aspiring Tasmanian writer, Kif, as he tries to draw out information from the illusive Heigl in order to meet his contract obligations and ghostwrite his autobiography and provide for his growing family back in Hobart, was a fascinating one.

I learned more about Kif, his earlier life, and that of his friend, Ray (currently bodyguard for Siegfried Heigl), than was revealed about the mysterious businessman. Heigl's ability to know private things about his ghost writer at times veered towards the supernatural. The book is very keenly set in an Australian setting and as a dual citizen of Australia having spent twenty years there, i really enjoyed the scenes in Melbourne pubs and the glimpses of Hobart and the Australian style in the dialogue.

Richard Flanaghan is a skilled writer and the book drew me in and i read it in one day, turning the pages in anticipation of finding out the truth behind the Heigl character. There are enough twists to keep you intrigued, although i felt the section where Kif's wife gives birth to twins was overlong and probably not that necessary. Although the book raised as many questions as it answered, it was a rollicking journey into the frustrations of the writing process and i really felt for Kif as he suffered through the experience of trying to prise information out of the elusive criminal.

If First Person were a first novel, the rejection letters would say the publishers did not know how to position the text. Because this is part novel, part memoir. Part psychological thriller, part dissection of the writing and publishing industry. For the most part, it is a highly readable and intriguing work.

Basically, the story is that in 1992 an aspiring (and unpublished) Tasmanian writer, Kif Kehlmann, is offered a contract to ghost write an autobiography of a fraudster, Ziggy Heidl, who is going to jail in six weeks. The lure is a $10,000 contract – enough to persuade Kif away from his heavily pregnant wife to spend time, holed up in the publisher’s Port Melbourne office, with a taciturn and evasive Ziggy. As time trickles through Kif’s fingers, and as the larger-than-life publisher Gene Paley gets increasingly twitchy, Kif plumbs the depths of despair. Oh, and Kif has been warned not to divulge any personal details by Ziggy’s minder Ray – who not entirely coincidentally turns out to have been Kif’s childhood friend.

Much of the novel is spent trying to work out just who Ziggy is. He claims to have been born and raised in Adelaide, yet speaks with a German accent. He was CEO of a large safety-based organisation that secured multi-million dollar loans from banks, but was also rumoured to have been involved in a criminal underworld where his business adversaries met sticky ends. He appears to be desperate for money – his $250,000 fee dwarfs that of his ghost writer – yet he seems to have no major expenses and will not need money in prison. He is simply unknowable. And that is Kif’s problem as he has to create the character at the heart of the autobiography.

Apparently much of the novel is, in a sense, autobiographical. As an aspiring writer, Richard Flanagan landed a six week job ghost-writing an autobiography for a German-Australian fraudster who shot himself three weeks into the process. And through the fictionalisation of this story, we learn a great deal about the publishing industry – or at least Richard Flanagan’s perspective on it. This includes air-headed publicists, lazy publishers who sit back while writers do the work for subsistence wages, vainglorious premises, A-list writers with obscene riders for appearances at publicity events, unfair contracts, and a general dis-interest in the truth. At times, it feels a bit like a whinge but Flanagan’s writing is good enough to keep the reader interested.

Where the novel doesn’t quite work, at least for me, was the pacing. The first 10% is a slow burn and doesn’t really grab the reader. Then there’s a lot of really compelling stuff; a really satisfying middle. Then, the final 20% - set 20 or more years later when Kif has become famous – feels overly long and a bit tacked on. It does offer a new perspective through which to re-appraise the Ziggy storyline but without being truly persuasive about how Kif could have got from there to here. The magic, for me, was in the relationship between Ziggy and Kif, each needing the other but unwilling to admit as much. And for that to work they both need to be there together.

Overall, though, an intriguing and puzzling novel that follows up on the enormous success of The Narrow Road to the Deep North without trying to replicate it.