The New York Trilogy

By: Paul Auster

Narrated by: Joe Barrett

Paul Auster's brilliant debut novels, City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room brought him 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 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.

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Paul Auster's book, you'll also get an exclusive Jim Atlas interview that begins when the audiobook ends.

This production is part of our Audible Modern Vanguard line, a collection of important works from groundbreaking authors.©2006 Paul Auster (P)2009 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"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)

"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)

"By turning the mystery novel inside out, Auster may have initiated a whole new round of storytelling." ( The Village Voice)

The stories are too weak

I think Paul Auster's "New York Trilogy" is considered "too weak" because of its repetitive themes, simplistic plot structures, and lack of substantial character development, often feeling more like a series of vignettes about a certain type of New York life rather than a deeply engaging narrative with significant conflict or complexity; essentially, some find the stories to be too thin and lacking in depth.

Pretty good read

Although not a fantastic book, I did like the 3 stories. The fact that they all had looking for someone git a bit old. I did like the character development and the book made a good summer read.

Why did I wait so long?

Paul Auster is yet another great author I learned about only when he died. These three connected short novels are “mystery novels” in the generic sense only on the surface. You will quickly realize the true mystery is that of existence itself.

Gripping, thought-provoking, hilarious

I loved this read. The middle story did drag - like repeating the first story without any of the fun stuff. But the first and last stories were fantastic - really genuine and free of many of the usual story-telling conventions that can stifle an author's voice. Also, this is one of the few audiobooks in which the narration is so good I don't think I would have gotten as much out of it if I'd simply read it. So good I gifted the audiobook to a friend.

I have read this book cover to back 3 times

I have little idea what happened, but it is powerful and I am losing my sanity