Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. A small blip in a huge worldwide network of desire, it is his business to hunt for names on paper, collect them, sell them,occasionally fake them, and all to give the people what they want: a little piece of Fame.

The Autograph Man is a deeply funny, existential tour around the hollow things of modernity — celebrity, cinema, and the ugly triumph of symbol over experience. Pushing against the tide of his generation, Alex-Li is on his way to finding enlightenment, otherwise known as some part of himself that cannot be signed, celebrated or sold.