Terrifice premise, and then what? A very disturbing scene : Invisible

As noted yesterday, all Paul Auster novels begin well. The first section of "Invisible" is really good - ending with a very surprising, tense sequence: narrator Adam Walker goes over to professor Born's place, Born confronts Walkerr with having an affair with his girlfriend (Margot) but strangely and not quite believably says it's all for the good, she was trash. Then they go for a stroll, a kids comes up to them with a gun, Born stabs the kid to death, Adam defies Born's threat and notifies the police, Born splits. This just a very capsulized summary. This premise is full of mystery and tension: will Born be caught, will he haunt Walker forever, was this episode staged in some way, what they hell is going on? Then, as he often does, Auster engages in a perspective shift; next section is written by a successful adult author (so now we have two Auster-like characters, one a college student in the 60s, one an author today) who hears from old college friend Walker after many years - Walker sent him the first section that we'd just read. Walker, as it happens, is near death, a failed writer, a leftwing California lawyer - a very different life from Auster's - he's what Auster might have been if fate had taken a different turn. Walker sends the Auster-like character the 2nd section of the novel, which we then start to read - a strange and intentionally disturbing section about his incestuous relation with his older sister. This section is a tour de force in some ways: the writing is very sexual, but the context - brother and sister getting it on - is so disturbing and taboo-violating that we feel repulsed rather than stirred. Makes you realize how important plot/context is to all fiction - great writing is more than language/description/scenes - it's how elements of a novel grow and develop and interact.