The New York Trilogy: City of Glass; Ghosts; The Locked Room (Contemporary American Fiction Series) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "IT was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end..." (more)
Key Phrases: red notebook, New York, Virginia Stillman, Peter Stillman (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Combining dark humor, Hitchcock-like suspense, and film-noir prose, these three unique novels--united--form a powerful and thought-provoking puzzle.

About the Author

Paul Auster’s novels include Brooklyn Follies, Oracle Night, and In the Country of Last Things, as well as two memoirs, a collection of essays, a volume of poems, and the screenplays for several films.

Luc Sante is best known for his first book, Low Life. He has also written introductions to books by Georges Simenon, Jacob Riis, and many other authors.

Art Spiegelman is a cartoonist who first came to attention in the early 1980s with a magazine he edited called Raw. Maus, his graphic novel about the Holocaust, won him the Pulitzer Prize, and his most recent book is In the Shadow of No Towers. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (April 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140131558
• ISBN-13: 978-0140131550
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,119 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 75 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surveillance of the self, October 20, 2002

By	Steven Reynolds (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

If you're looking for detective stories, look elsewhere. Auster isn't interested in the classic noirish private eye tale as anything but a way into territory vastly more compelling. Though his three novellas ostensibly revolve around men hired or driven into the pursuit of others, they end up being more about the psychology of the pursuer than the pursued. Surveillance of the self and the collapse of what we assume is our own identity is the abiding theme here, and Auster gives it three fascinating spins with simple plots which quickly spiral to literary altitudes. But don't expect simple resolutions. There are no straightforward answers here. If these were simple issues, they wouldn't justify the exploration Auster gives them. I had the pleasure of reading this immediately prior to Auster's "The Art of Hunger" (1997), a collection of essays and interviews which reveals, among other things, how "The New York Trilogy" blends aspects of his autobiography, literary theories and abiding interests into a fascinating work of fiction. Read them together. Then read everything else he's written. You won't be disappointed.

49 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A highly original and brilliant post-modern thriller, October 25, 1999

By A Customer

Paul Auster's "New York Trilogy" consists of three seemingly unconnected novellas which though complete in themselves should be read as integral parts of a total literary experience. Unlike a conventional mystery thriller which focuses on the "who done what to whom" aspect of the storyline, Auster turns the table on the reader by taking him on a journey of self discovery past a hall of mirrors which reflect and expose by stages the psyche of the pursuer, not the pursued. The effect is so spooky you want to scream in your head as you encounter the next slice of reality about yourself. Readers familiar with the music of rock star David Bowie will find the reading experience similar to that of listening to his 1977 album "Low", a dark and creepy introspective piece of work. All three vignettes deal with questions of identity, reality and illusion, the meaning of words and language and explores the fine line between commitment and obsession. Both Quinn in "City of Glass" and the anonymous narrator in "Ghosts" are trapped in their own circumstances and forced to make human choices which lead to their mental breakdown. There is also a noir-like cinematic feel about the trilogy that just begs for this masterful piece of work to be brought to the screen. Auster has produced a highly original post-modern thriller that will mesmerise and enthrall readers for years to come. It is simply superb and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, Brilliant, Intense, August 4, 2002

By	"staroftrackandfield" (vermont) - See all my reviews

Paul Auster's New York Trilogy is one of the finest books I've read in a long while; it's riveting. Auster is one of my favorite writers, and for those new to his writing The New York Trilogy is a good place to start.

Essentially, these three novellas are detective stories with film-noir atmosphere, but the themes Auster tackles go beyond those of your standard spy novel. There are questions of identity, power dynamics, the relationship between the writer and his characters, the relationship between a detective and his suspects.

Additionally, this is a wonderfully bookish book; references to Lewis Carroll, Cervantes, etc. abound. There are books within books within books; all the lines that separate reality from writing from fictional reality from fictional writing are blurred, turning the reader inside-out and upside-down as he or she reads.

Most importantly, these novellas are highly engaging and evocative. Though Auster's writing has been described as cold and austere, these are compelling stories; it is easy succumb to the swift, gripping narrative.

A truly lovely collection, very conceptual, breaks all the rules and wriggles its way out of any genre to which one might try to confine it.