A man buys a cell phone and starts receiving calls intended for someone else; so begins this tale about fame and obscurity, truth and deception—full of surprise, humor, and brilliance.

After some initial hesitation, a man receiving someone else’s phone calls begins to play with his new identity. From one day to the next, an actor’s telephone falls dead silent, as though someone has stolen his life. A writer takes a pair of trips with a woman whose worst fear is to end up in one of his works. A somewhat confused Internet blogger wants nothing more than to become a character in a novel. A detective-story writer goes missing while on a journey through Central Asia, a fictional old woman on her deathbed quarrels with the writer who created her, and a managing director at a cell phone company goes crazy trying to manage his double life with two women.

In Fame , nine episodes coalesce to form a coherent whole as Daniel Kehlmann plays a sophisticated game with reality and fiction—creating, in essence, a dazzling hall of mirrors.