Whoa. I am literally speechless and mindblown by Auster’s detective-cum-existentialist (and philosophical)-cum-psychological novel which literally spins the crime genre on its head.

Where do I start from? The trilogy in the title refers to three short stories: City of Glass, Ghosts and The Locked Room. Each story is seemingly set in a different period though all set in the city that never sleeps, New York. They seem unconnected and unrelated. The three of them are set around writers, private detectives, telephones (and telephone calls that should be made but are not), identities (crisis), Quixotean quests, colours and historical anecdotes. It grips you from your throat right from the beginning:

“It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.”

Auster literally plays with words, he is economical (or austere, excuse my pun) in the sense that he uses the “less is more” mantra to perfection. He spins you around and immerse you in equal measure. Sometimes I was overwhelmed by a feeling of such awe at his prose and writing style that I felt hopeless at ever writing again. There is intelligent intertextuality: Don Quixote/ Daniel Quinn or the unnamed narrator in story 3 as Sancho; or the reference to Sherlock Holmes in page 83 (“Quinn knew this because he made it his business to know such things.”)

I won’t go into much detail. But as you go along there is desperation, madness, loss, questions about life, weird happenings, literary theories. What a read!

And an ending which will haunt you for days to come. Same as what happened when I finished Irvine Welsh’s Filth.