In the aftermath of 911, nine-year-old Oskar Schell struggles with the loss of his father whose calls from the burning World Trade Center he heard on the answering machine while he was alone in the family's apartment in New York City. Jonathan Safran Foer puts the reader in the head of this highly imaginative and sensitive boy as he seeks for meaning in the life and death of his father. The result is sometimes hilarious, but mostly poignant. The back story about his grandparents is a little too bizarre to be believable, but being in Oskar's mind is wonderful even though he often has "heavy boots" and is not feeling "one hundred dollars."
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close would be a good book for discussion, but I probably won't suggest it for my book club, beause I think they would find it weird and perhaps too challanging -- Oskar's voice is distinctive, but narration sometimes switches to other characters and can be a little hard to follow.
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