4 3 2 1: A Novel

Paul Auster

Jan 2017 · Sold by Henry Holt and Company

About this ebook

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
A New York Times , Los Angeles Times , Boston Globe , and Indiebound Bestseller

Paul Auster’s magnum opus, 4 3 2 1 presents a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself.

“An epic bildungsroman . . . . Original and complex . . . . A monumental assemblage of competing and complementary fictions, a novel that contains multitudes.”—Tom Perrotta, The New York Times Book Review

Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson’s pleasures and ache from each Ferguson’s pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson’s life rushes on.

As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from the author before, 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force.

“A stunningly ambitious novel, and a pleasure to read. . . . An incredibly moving, true journey.”—NPR

Ratings and reviews

My first Auster novel, but far from my last. I had an open mind going into this book, which recounts the fictional four possible lives of a young Archie Ferguson in the middle of the 20th century. Themes of idealism, uncertainty and recovery stuck out to me, and Auster's long-winding, almost stream-of-consciousness prose helped to capture the inner psyche of the adolescent protagonist and his surrounding cast. This was a challenging read for me at first, as the numbered structure takes some time to adjust to, and there are a few repeated characters with varying significance across the different lives of Archie Ferguson, but it was one of the more rewarding reads I have experienced. Be patient, this book will bring you what you don't know you want on its terms.

About the author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.