"the new york trilogy" by paul auster

this book is three short novellas that could be classified as postmodern detective fiction.

the first, city of glass, follows a protagonist writer as he’s mistaken for a detective (named paul auster) and starts an obsessive watch of a recently released criminal. it’s bizarre and absurd and not much happens, but it’s fascinating to read.

the second, ghosts, is the story of blue, who’s hired by white, to watch black. white rents an apartment for blue on orange street where he can see directly in to black's window. black turns out to be quite dull, spending most of his time writing and reading thoreau. it’s bizarre and absurd and not much happens, but it’s fascinating to read.

the third, the locked room, is also the tale of a writer. he’s contacted by his childhood best friend’s wife after the friend disappears. the friend, fanshawe, told his wife, sophie, that if anything should ever happen to him she’s to contact this friend to read over his life’s work and deem if any of it is suitable for publishing. the protagonist writer friend publishes all fanshawe’s work, marries sophie and embarks on writing a biography about fanshawe. it’s bizarre and absurd and there’s much more action and plot than the first two novellas and it's fascinating to read.

there are many similar themes that run through these stories tying them together into a cohesive whole. they’re all meta-fictional with themes of watching/being watched, mistaken identities, existentialism, transformation and intrigue. while i'm not going to rush out to read paul auster's entire oeuvre, i'll definitely keep him in mind for future reading.