SOURCE: “Allusions and Subtext Don't Slow a Good Plot,” in The New York Times, October 2, 1990, p. C15.

In the following review, Kakutani offers positive assessment of The Music of Chance.

Paul Auster's new book, The Music of Chance, begins like many classic American novels with the hero leaving an old life behind and setting off to invent a new identity for himself. When Jim Nashe inherits a modest fortune from his father, he quits his job as a fireman in Boston, parks his daughter with his sister, sells his possessions, buys a new car and begins driving the highways. He zigzags back and forth from Oregon to Texas, “charging down the enormous, vacant highways that cut through Arizona, Montana and Utah,” then turns around and heads back East. Addicted to the idea of motion, he finds himself reluctant to stop and decides to keep driving around the country...