In the six years since leaving SPIN Magazine, the inexhaustible pop-culture writer Chuck Klosterman has proven himself to be incredibly knowledgeable about KISS, MTV's "Real World" and all things North Dakotan. He has published three essay collections, two non-fiction books and two novels, including his most famous, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. In October, Klosterman published his most recent novel, the incredibly profound The Visible Man.

The narrator, Victoria Vick, is a therapist in the middle of a difficult marriage. She relates to the audience the story of her most interesting patient under the guise of the novel being a manuscript she is trying to get published. The man of whom she speaks, Y__ (as she refers to him) has the capability to become invisible, the result of a failed government project. Y__ chooses to wear his invisibility suit to break into the homes of others. He quietly observes them for days at a time because he is fascinated by the way people act when they are completely alone.

The ethical and moral issues of quasi-voyeurism begin to prickle Y__'s conscience, however. Vick becomes obsessed with Y__'s stories of the bizarre and truly sad lives people in modern society live when no one else is watching.

 As Vick spends more time talking with her patient, she becomes obsessed with the life of Y__, to the point where she spends her time fantasizing about his stories.

The Visible Manis far from a love story. At its most basic level, it questions the idea of relationships between humans. Vick and Y__ seem to be infatuated with each other out of sheer necessity for human contact, just as the people Y__ watches suffer quietly in their loneliness.

At the beginning of the novel, Y__ seems to be a sociopath and Vick an innocent, average woman. As the plot progresses, the lines between the two blur, redefining what "normal" means in American society.

In examining Y__'s life, readers are invited to question how daily, private routines would appear to complete outsiders. Furthermore, Klosterman allows us to analyze the effect that Y__ has on the lives of his subjects. Can humans ever come into contact, even in an invisible manner, without being changed forever?

Although Y__ states time and time again that he has no ethical code, he still makes an attempt to stop the destructive cycle of a girl he watches who binges, smokes marijuana and works out obsessively to rid herself of the calories. By lacing her marijuana with speed in an effort to stop her from binging, however, Y__ sends the girl into a drug-induced shock and must call the hospital.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of The Visible Man is the question it raises about the instincts of humanity. In an age where voyeuristic games like The Sims and reality television are extremely successful, what does our desire to see into the lives of others say about us? Are we so insecure about our own lives that we must constantly compare them to others?

Klosterman uses letters, manuscripts, audio recording transcripts and various other textual formats over the course of the book, keeping readers hooked in his ever-changing presentation of the narrative.

 In many ways, Klosterman his been working up to a novel of this caliber his entire career. The perfect mix of his pop-culture analysis and idiosyncratic style of looking at life, The Visible Man succeeds for both Klosterman-devotees and new readers, alike.

Klosterman has proven himself to be a prolific writer on subjects of music and art, but The Visible Manis undoubtedly his tour-de-force.

Both the quirky, oddball plot concept and the characters make his second novel his best writing to date.