AUSTER, Paul. The New York Trilogy. Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1994.
8vo. Rust-coloured publisher's cloth, backstrip lettered in silver; in the original unclipped pictorial dust jacket, showing a photograph of the city skyline; grey endpapers; pp. [ix], 10-464, [viii]; spine ends compressed, some ink finger marks to the outer edge of pages; else near-fine in the like dust jacket which is a touch creased to extremities, a couple of minor dirt marks the only other defects.
First American collected edition of the New York Trilogy, with full number line 1-10. Comprising City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room, the volume is presented here for the first time in a cloth binding.
Paul Auster (1947-2024) was an American writer and filmmaker. Born in New Jersey, he began writing at the age of eight when, after missing out on autograph from his baseball hero because he didn't have a pencil, he began to carry one around with him wherever he went. Later, at a summer camp, he witnessed the tragic death of a boy just inches away from him who was struck by lightning. The event strongly impacted his life, and understandably became a prominent feature in his writing.
Auster gained renown for this series of three experimental detective stories published collectively as The New York Trilogy. The first volume, City of Glass, appeared in 1985, and tells the story of a private investigator who descends into madness. The second, Ghosts, was published the following year, and follows a private eye similarly immersed in the life of the man he is investigating. The final novel, The Locked Room takes a new focus, describing the story of a writer in a creative slump. The title of the last book takes its name from the famous 'Locked Room' mysteries typical of early detective fiction.
One reviewer puts the curious mix of detective and post-modern fiction well: "Imagine how Raymond Chandler might have told stories" he writes, "if he had spent too much time reading contemporary literary criticism."
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