The New York Trilogy

Paul Auster

Apr 1990 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

The remarkable, acclaimed series of interconnected detective novels City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room, from New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster.
 
This Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition includes an introduction from author and professor Lucy 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.

“Exhilarating . . . a brilliant investigation of the storyteller’s art guided by a writer-detective who’s never satisfied with just the facts.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
 
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 own 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?

Moving at the breathless pace of a thriller, this is a uniquely stylized trilogy of detective novels that The Washington Post Book World has classified as “post-existential private eye. . . . It’s as if Kafka has gotten hooked on the gumshoe game and penned his own ever-spiraling version.”

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Ratings and reviews

Absolutely astounding. This automatically goes to my top 10 list of books ever read. Three novellas, fashioned as detective stories, but in reality more focused on the art and craft of writing, the role of the writer in the world and the obsession and detachment documenting and representing reality can engender, and the somewhat tenuous nature of how we define our own identity. If this sounds heady and tough to follow, it isn't - Auster keeps the tension building and the momentum moving forward, even when describing static moments, through his wonderful use of language. Amazing.

Deeply maddening, disturbing and fascinating

About the author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Sunset Park, The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. His other honors include the Prix Médicis étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Burning Boy, and the Carlos Fuentes Prize for his body of work. His novel 4 3 2 1 was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. Paul Auster died in 2024.