"I Am No One" by Patrick Flanery ****

• Early review edition for LibraryThing.com
• Original publication 2016
• US author
• Vocabulary:
• gaudy: vulgar display
• Notes:
• notion of the British having deeply ingrained suspicion of strangers, from IRA threat and/or WWII spy fears
• reference to the film, "The Conversation" in which the snooper becomes the snooped upon
• the frightening power of the combined force of scrutiny
• societal training to observe and report starts at an early age, although tattlers are reviled
• the terrifying realization that we are observed, and the data is "reserved for future use"
• it is not the unintended criminal act which is new, it is the "degree and speed" of the actions taken by government authorities
• technology is teaching us "to react rather than reflect"
• HOW AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL IS THIS?
• Quotes:
• p.20..."...for those people who have been rich from birth, who have, as his mother jokes, been paying taxes since they were in utero, they can never entirely understand the realities faced by most Americans, never mind the realities of the profoundly impoverished people elsewhere in the world, to whom America's poor would look comparatively well off."
• p.22..."Each word I put on paper I imagine may be the last I write in freedom."
• p.78..."Those of us who are rational believe that as long as we are not breaking any laws, there is no reason the government should be watching what we do inside our homes, within confines of our private property, and yet this apparently rational belief has been demonstrated, time and again, by the behavior of law enforcement and intelligence services, to be profoundly false."
• p.120..."What is crazy is to imagine we are living private lives, or that a private life is a possibility any longer.....".
• p.281..."Though not in a state of detention, I am at least in a state of suspension: suspension of belief in the possibility f liberty  In other words, I believe that one day soon, perhaps today or tomorrow or the next, I may no longer walk free in the world, left with nothing but the memory of an illusory freedom once enjoyed with too little appreciation for its rarity."
• p.305....."...I saw how easily I might become one of the city's legions of unhinged, a man muttering and unkempt, scribbling proof of his own life on scraps of paper, covering every surface of notebook upon notebook, ever convinced of his sanity."
• Review:  This is a deeply compelling novel.  On a personal level it is deeply disturbing.  On a societal level it is despairing.  I can only hope that the trend will change if enough people draw attention to it.  The premise of this novel is that everybody is a no one, until they take some sort of action which makes them a someone, and it is nearly impossible to know which actions precipitate the transformation.  I could hardly put the novel down.  It was reminiscent of the film, "Beautiful Mind", without the actual insanity of the author.  The insanity was societal. Take a deep breath before reading this one.  It may keep you awake at night for a while, and hopefully raise awareness of the myriad ways we are observable.