Frederick's Reviews > City of Glass

This short novel is the first of the installments in Paul Auster's THE NEW YORK TRILOGY. This installment first appeared in 1985. I'll refer you to Goodreads' thumbnail description if you'd like to get a sense of the premise.
My view is CITY OF GLASS is Noir. It bears comparison to the works of Kafka, Nathanael West, Knut Hamsun and Dashiell Hammett. The prose is very formal. Auster's peers died around the time he was born. A reader of this book must be patient because it is an exploration of what it is to be an outsider. Which reminds me: Camus.
It is set in a part of New York weirdly familiar to me. I spent from birth to five in the same neighborhood. Some have said this doesn't strike them as a book really starring New York. I say it does star New York. I imprinted there.