The New York Trilogy

In Paul Auster's dreamlike and hazy New York, places are out of time, identities dissolve and characters superimpose on each other, transform and vanish in the foggy unknown. Though structured as a crime novel, the three stories lead the unusual detectives along paths that cut through the superficial side of this fantastical New York created by the author and weave into what's behind it, however vague and blurred. In the first story, “Città di vetro” (“City of glass”), Daniel Quinn gets a phone call in the middle of the night – the call was actually for a certain Paul Auster, private detective, but Quinn decides to impersonate him and takes on the weird case, losing himself amongst the many characters appearing as the narrative goes on. In the second story, “Fantasmi” (“Ghosts”), detective Blue is hired to stalk Black and write detailed reports on his daily life, an alienating everyday task that will lead him to realise that he was the one being observed. In the last story, “La stanza chiusa” (“The locked room”), the unnamed protagonist investigates the disappearance of his childhood friend Fanshawe, an incredibly talented writer, until he feels he's become him and takes on his identity. The authors protagonists of these three short stories that make up the trilogy – pieces originally published independently between 1985 and 1987 – are modern-day Don Quixotes who get so lost in their obsessions that their identity dissolve.  

Trilogia di New York (The New York Trilogy)
Paul Auster
Einaudi, 2014