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If you want to read a book that uses delicate plotting to subtly expose many dimensions of the thinking of its two leading characters, you will find The Tattooed Girl to be a tour de force. Unfortunately, the two characters are people you may not identify with because they seem drawn more to create a hypothetical case (of the sort so fondly debated in laws schools) rather than people you have met or know. As a result, the book's powerful message in favor of connection and sharing falls short its potential punch. The reader is likely to come away glassy-eyed from the book's events, but not redirected in her or his behavior.

Joshua Seigl is a man trying to hide from his own success, and finding it harder and harder to do so. In the course of the book, you'll find out the many reasons why he is hiding. The time comes to take on an assistant to help him with his papers, correspondence and occasional odd jobs around the house. Seigl rejects all kinds of qualified male applicants due to his own hypersensitive nature. Then, one day he meets an odd young woman struggling to do a simple job in a local bookstore. Despite her lack of qualifications other than being non-threatening, he hires her. Her submissiveness allows them to get along on the surface, but she develops a strong dislike for him that emerges into virulent anti-Semitism. Ms. Oates then takes us on a journey with them as they drop their public faces and begin to connect with one another, and the result is that their views of one another begin to reflect the inner realities of one another.

Ms. Oates's theories are that we usually judge one another rather harshly based on appearances, behavior and our historical sense of what's what. Instead, she encourages us to drop our guard and let others know who we really are . . . and take the time to find out who they are. Think of this as being like "Get acquainted with others as you would like others to get acquainted with you" as a variation on the Golden Rule. Although there's an obvious religious message here, Ms. Oates mostly leaves religion out of her story . . . probably to make the potential lesson more accessible to people of all faiths and non-faith.

This book would make a fine choice for a sophomore English class in high school as a launching pad for many fine discussions about the dangers of categorizing others.

As I finished the book, I began to wonder to whom I had not properly explained myself . . . and to whom I had not properly listened. That was a valuable benefit from reading the fine writing in the book.