{"id":32584,"date":"2025-04-08T12:27:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:27:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=32584"},"modified":"2025-04-08T12:27:01","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T12:27:01","slug":"paul-austers-the-new-york-trilogy-city-of-glass-ghosts-the-locked-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2025\/04\/08\/paul-austers-the-new-york-trilogy-city-of-glass-ghosts-the-locked-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Auster\u2019s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Paul Auster<\/strong>, adapted and illustrated by Paul Karasik<\/strong>, Lorenzo Mattotti<\/strong> & David Mazzucchelli<\/strong> (Faber & Faber)
\nISBN: 978-0-571-38928-5 (HB\/Digital edition)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> produced for dramatic effect.<\/em><\/p>\n

We reviewers frequently use the phrase \u201cbetter read that critiqued\u201d for difficult books, because although it\u2019s a lazy cop-out it\u2019s also immensely useful and mostly true. It\u2019s generally a cue that what we\u2019re recommending is exceptionally special and that you\u2019d be an idiot not to take the hint and dive into the item under the lens…<\/p>\n

The three prose novels comprising The New York Trilogy<\/strong> are far better read than critiqued by me (or anyone else) and you should get to them ASAP. Written by Paul Auster (Moon Palace<\/strong>, The Book of Illusions<\/strong>, Winter Journal<\/strong>, 4 3 2 1<\/strong>) and originally published as 1985\u2019s City of Glass<\/strong>, with both Ghosts<\/strong> and The Locked Room<\/strong> released a year later, they are lauded as postmodern masterpieces. The stories use the trappings and tone of detective and mystery fiction – especially the haunting modes of Film Noir – to explore literary and philosophical themes and do it in a totally absorbing and compulsive manner, equal parts gripping, mystifying and oddly charming.<\/p>\n

The prose trilogy has been adapted to many other forms, including an audiobook version, and opening piece City of Glass<\/strong> has been two separate plays; one in the US and the other here in Britain. Art Spiegelman illustrated a prose rerelease in 2006, and there was a gallery show at the 2009 Dedica Literary Festival in Pordenone, Italy, but to my admittedly prejudiced mind, nothing has bettered the graphic novel adapted by Paul Karasik (How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels<\/strong>, You Shall Die by Your Own Evil Creation!<\/strong>) and David Mazzucchelli (Asterios Polyp<\/strong>, Batman: Year One<\/strong>, Daredevil: Born Again<\/strong>, Rubber Blanket<\/strong>, Big Man<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

It was first published by Avon Books in 1994 as Neon Lit: Paul Auster\u2019s City of Glass (a Graphic Mystery)<\/strong>, but despite being named one of \u201cThe Top 100 English-Language Comics of the Century\u201d, vanished without trace until rereleased in 2004 as City of Glass: The Graphic Novel<\/strong> and finally finding fame on the international scene; if not the English-speaking world. Now it forms the spine of a fabulous complete compilation of Auster\u2019s triptych as Karasik – who has worked with Auster for decades (until his death April 2024) on adapting Ghosts<\/strong> and The Locked Room<\/strong> – completes a task decades in the making.<\/p>\n

In the shadows of Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, and John Barth, and enlisting the fundamental themes and tools of postmodernism – metafiction, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality – these graphic interpretations also act in conjunction with Auster\u2019s own personal beliefs about human nature, communication and language, concerns about isolation, identity, coincidence, chance and the inescapable lure of obsession.<\/p>\n

Layered with meaning and conceptual red herrings, City of Glass<\/strong> \u201cstars\u201d a crime fiction writer inexorably drawn into a real-life investigation following a bizarre and disturbing wrong number on the telephone. The case comes with real dangers, chilling consequences and alarming revelations, but just like poor demented Don Quixote<\/strong>, the paid fantasist cannot let go and will not reclaim his good sense, and thereby pays the full price…
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\nIt\u2019s followed by two premiers as both illustrated adaptations Ghosts <\/strong>and The Locked Room<\/strong> are published for the first time in this volume. Illustrated by master draughtsman Lorenzo Mattotti (Fires<\/strong>, Stigmata<\/strong>, Labyrinths<\/strong>, Murmur<\/strong>, Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde<\/strong>, Guirlanda<\/em><\/strong>) from Kurasik\u2019s script, Ghosts<\/strong> is a far more formally orchestrated crime caper and mystery play. Set firmly in the celluloid wonderland of post-WWII America, with characters assuming colour-based pseudonyms Mr. Brown<\/em>, Mr. Gray<\/em>, Mr. Green<\/em>, Mr. White<\/em>, Mr. Black<\/em> and more, all the layers of players are circling youthful but driven surveillance specialist Mr. Blue<\/em> who gradually grows too close to his subject and suddenly finds he\u2019s in far too deep…<\/p>\n

Concluding the project, Kurasic writes and draws the tale of The Locked Room<\/strong>. Here a failing and uninspired editorial writer rediscovers his own spark of creative greatness after the wife of an almost forgotten childhood pal asks him to assess and curate the literary life\u2019s work of an unsuspected genius wordsmith. Sadly, as the works of Fanshawe<\/em> permeate the failure\u2019s life, the missing man\u2019s wife dominates his emotional world, and our unhappy, unremarkable and unreliable narrator begins to realise he is being buried alive whilst Fanshawe is neither missing nor dead but rather close by with an alarming personal agenda in play…
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\nThis evocative tribute to the subgenre of locked room mysteries and power of lost loves concludes a powerful and beguiling walk in the shadows that will stay with the reader forever, and which makes this very visual New York threesome a book that must be seen and savoured.
\nPaul Auster\u2019s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room<\/strong> \u00a9 William Golding 1954. Adaptations and illustrations \u00a9 Aim\u00e9e de Jongh 2024. All rights reserved.
\nPaul Auster\u2019s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room <\/strong>will be published on April 10th<\/sup> 2025 and is available for pre-order now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paul Auster, adapted and illustrated by Paul Karasik, Lorenzo Mattotti & David Mazzucchelli (Faber & Faber) ISBN: 978-0-571-38928-5 (HB\/Digital edition) This book includes Discriminatory Content produced for dramatic effect. We reviewers frequently use the phrase \u201cbetter read that critiqued\u201d for difficult books, because although it\u2019s a lazy cop-out it\u2019s also immensely useful and mostly … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Paul Auster\u2019s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,75,239,105,225],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adaptations","category-crime-comics","category-drama","category-mature-reading","category-mystery"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-8ty","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32584"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32590,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32584\/revisions\/32590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}