Synopses & Reviews
The New York Trilogy is the series that made New York Times-bestselling author Paul Auster a renowned writer of metafiction and a special sort of genre-rebelling detective fiction which the New York Review of Books has called one of the most distinctive niches in contemporary literature.” Moving at the breathless pace of a thriller, these uniquely stylized detective novels include City of Glass in which Quinn, a mystery writer, receives an ominous phone call in the middle of the night. Hes drawn into the streets of New York, onto an elusive case thats more puzzling and more deeply-layered than anything he might have written himself. In Ghosts, Blue, a mentee of Brown, is hired by White to spy on Black from a window on Orange Street. Once Blue starts stalking Black, he finds his subject on a similar mission. In The Locked Room, Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving behind his wife and baby and nothing but a cache of novels, plays, and poems.
This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition includes an introduction from author and professor Luc Sante, as well as a pulp novel-inspired cover from Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic artist of Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers.
Review
"Three exhilarating installments...a brilliant investigation of the storyteller's art guided by a writer-detective who's never satisfied with just the facts." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"Eminently readable and mysterious....Auster has added some new dimensions to modern literature and more importantly even to our perspectives on the planet." Boston Globe
Review
"Auster harnesses the inquiring spirit any reader brings to a mystery, redirecting it from the grubby search for a wrongdoer to the more rarified search for the self." New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
The remarkable, acclaimed series of interconnected detective novels from the author of the forthcoming 4 3 2 1: A Novel
TheNew York Review of Bookshas called Paul Auster's work one of the most distinctive niches in contemporary literature. Moving at the breathless pace of a thriller, this uniquely stylized triology of detective novels begins withCity of Glass, in which Quinn, a mystery writer, receives an ominous phone call in the middle of the night. He s drawn into the streets of New York, onto an elusive case that s more puzzling and more deeply-layered than anything he might have written himself. InGhosts, Blue, a mentee of Brown, is hired by White to spy on Black from a window on Orange Street. Once Blue starts stalking Black, he finds his subject on a similar mission, as well. InThe Locked Room, Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving behind his wife and baby and nothing but a cache of novels, plays, and poems.
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Synopsis
Paul Auster's brilliant debut novels,
City of Glass,
Ghosts, and
The Locked Room, are here collected in a cloth edition for the first time in the United States. These three novels brought Auster international acclaim for his creation of a new genre, mixing elements of the standard detective fiction and postmodern fiction.
City of Glass combines dark, Kafka-like humor with all the suspense of a Hitchcock film as a writer of detective stories becomes embroiled in a complex and puzzling series of events, beginning with a call from a stranger in the middle of the night asking for the author Paul Auster himself.
Ghosts, the second volume of this interconnected trilogy, introduces Blue, a private detective hired to watch a man named Black, who, as he becomes intermeshed into a haunting and claustrophobic game of hide-and-seek, is lured into the very trap he has created.
The final volume, The Locked Room, also begins with a mystery, told this time in the first-person narrative. The nameless hero journeys into the unknown as he attempts to reconstruct the past which he has experienced almost as a dream.
Together these three fictions lead the reader on adventures that expand the mind as they entertain.
Synopsis
City of Glass As a result of a strange phone call in the middle of the night, Quinn, a writer of detective stories, becomes enmeshed in a case more puzzling than any he might have written.
Ghosts
Blue, a student of Brown, has been hired by White to spy on Black. From a window of a rented room on Orange Street, Blue keeps watch on his subject, who is across the street, staring out of his window.
The Locked Room
Fanshawe has disappeared, leaving behind his wife and baby and a cache of extraordinary novels, plays, and poems. What happened to him--and why is the narrator, Fanshawe's boyhood friend, lured obsessively into his life?
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. His work has been translated into over 30 languages.
Table of Contents
The New York Trilogy City of Glass
Ghosts
The Locked Room