Questions of identity in an age marked by a preoccupation with appearances permeate Look at Me, which takes place in a time in which the most frightful aspects of the virtual revolution have entirely derailed age-old notions of self and identity. Egan's horrifying look at a world in which commercial viability far outweighs humanitarian concerns is punctuated by fleeting, almost wistful glimpses of people who are far enough removed from the epicenter of the information age that they have escaped, at least for now, its ravages. There is young Charlotte, daughter of Charlotte Swenson's girlhood friend, who traverses the rural landscape of her Midwestern town with a steamy sexuality untouched by time. There is Moose, the erstwhile football hero whose glory days have slipped away, leaving him obsessed with a mysterious vision of the historical, industrial age, an age of purity and hope that somehow gave rise to today's technological excess. And there is the enigmatic Michael West, who repeatedly exchanges one way of life for another in an endless quest for what he believes is revenge, but in fact is something else.

Have you ever wondered what might become of your essential self if the surface were torn away? Have you pondered the difference between the face you present to the world and the reality you carry inside? Jennifer Egan's multifaceted portrait of a fashion model who finds herself suddenly confronting such questions invites us to evaluate our most deeply held notions of identity and challenges us to examine the price we pay for the furious pace of modern life.