The New York Trilogy

Literary fiction · Absurdism

First published: 1987
Print length: 308 pagesPenguin Books, 2006

Description

The New York Trilogy brings together City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room, three interconnected novels by Paul Auster. The opening novel begins with a wrong-number call intended for the Pinkerton detective agency, setting a mystery in motion. Across the collection, clue-following, surveillance, and striking coincidences create questions about human identity rather than offering the simple certainty of conventional detection. Auster uses detective and mystery forms as vehicles for philosophical inquiry into language and existence. He also presents the three books as alternate dimensions of a single story and as a kind of shadow autobiography.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Atmospheric · Experimental · Spare

Pace

Measured

Tone

Atmospheric · Cerebral · Melancholic · Unsettling

Structure

Fragmented · Linked collection

Focus

Character · Ideas · Mystery

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 4 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

Art and creativityIdentityIsolationKnowledge and truthObsession

About Paul Auster

Paul Auster was an American novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, translator, and filmmaker whose work moved readily among literary forms. He edited The Random House Book of Twentieth-Century French Poetry and later divided his attention among fiction, memoir, essays, and film. His novels are known for lucid, often confessional prose joined to suspenseful structures, sudden reversals, and autobiographical elements. The New York Trilogy turns the detective story into an inquiry about identity and interpretation, while Leviathan similarly uses investigation and competing accounts to test how a life can be understood. Chance, doubling, and unstable selves recur throughout his fiction, reaching their most expansive form in 4 3 2 1, which follows four possible lives from a single beginning. Yet his range also includes the canine fable Timbuktu and the conversational tragicomedy of The Brooklyn Follies. New York is a frequent setting, but Auster’s deeper subject is the way accident, storytelling, and the search for meaning reshape a person’s sense of self.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Penguin Books
Language: English
ISBN: 9780143039839

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