INVISIBLE. Paul Auster. Holt. 320 pages. $25.

In Paul Auster's world, everybody writes. And those who don't write want to. Not surprising, then, that his latest novel is riddled with word-workers.

James Freeman, the story's primary narrator, is an accomplished novelist. His friend Adam Walker, the de facto hero, has written much of a memoir. The odd Cécile Juin keeps a detailed diary. And the monstrous Rudolf Born wants to turn his life into a thriller. Even Walker's sister Gwyn wrote plays as a teen. And though Cécile's mother Héle`ne isn't a writer, she is a speech pathologist, so she still works with words.

With all those words floating around you might expect quite a cacophony. But this is Auster, to whom a cacophony is akin to a symphony.

Like all of Auster's previous novels -- many of which have just been handsomely reissued by Picador -- Invisible threads stories within stories. And like all of those books, each simultaneously breaches some divide and is tangential to the other. What's remarkable is how melodious Auster makes the counterpoints, how he can remain divergent without becoming digressive, how he can conduct a cacophony and not end up with a racket.

Invisible is told from three perspectives, in first-, second- and third-person narrative modes. The first comes from Adam Walker, a Columbia undergrad who knows more about books than he does about life. Walker's a bit of a wallflower, so when he's approached at a party by the gregarious Rudolf Born and his fetching French sidekick Margot, he's as surprised as we are, though not too surprised to quip with a reference to an obscure 12th century Provençal poet. Then again, one gets the impression he sits at home longing for opportunities to flex his learning. Born and Margot are suitably impressed by the young brainiac.

Naturally their meeting begins a chapter in Walker's life for which no literature could prepare him. There's money, love, murder. He has no experience with these things. There's also an opportunity for Walker to see just what he's made of; turns out he isn't made of much at all.

The second- and third-person (and concomitant) parts again concern Walker; this time, however, his unfinished memoir becomes the point of departure. Freeman learns some ugly things about his old friend, first of his days immediately following his leaving Columbia; then of his time in Paris, when Walker seemed to subsist on poetry, translations and revenge fantasies. But Freeman is not one to judge. And he not only takes the stories for what they are but also takes time to complete them in the third person. A fourth and final part puts Héle`ne, now a somewhat dowdy career woman, with Born, who has retreated to a Caribbean island.

Though Freeman is much the conductor of this symphony, and everybody else plays significant parts, Invisible is really Walker's story. From the inept student of 1967 New York, through the clumsy doings in 1968 Paris, to the sad day of his unsung demise, he seems to be perpetually attempting to come of age. Unfortunately for him, when he's finally about to do that, his evening is almost over.

As always, Auster injects autobiographical elements throughout. In 1967, he too was a student at Columbia, and he too spent some time as a poet/translator in Paris. He has kept his hand in the translating game, most recently with 2003's The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert. Joubert was just Auster's sort of character: an obsessive writer who went unpublished in his life yet who left behind ``a masterpiece.''

``Joubert speaks in whispers,'' Auster writes in his introduction. ``One must draw very close to hear what he is saying.'' This intimacy is also how Auster's work should be approached.

In Invisible Auster has done what few writers can do: create sympathy for an unsympathetic sap. More importantly, he's crafted another cleverly considered tale that twists and turns with alacrity and grace. So what if the alacrity happens to be that of a monster and the grace is gleaned from a fallen angel? Those conditions don't make the work any less wondrous.

John Hood is a Miami-based columnist and correspondent.