‘Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room’ (review)

Based on The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster 
Adaptations by Paul Karasik, Lorenzo Mattotti,
and David Mazzucchelli
Published by Pantheon Books

The work of celebrated American author Paul Auster lives on in a new graphic novel published by Pantheon Books. Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy: City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room—The Graphic Adaptation by noted illustrators Paul Karasik, Lorenzo Mattotti, and David Mazzucchelli brings to fruition a project more than 30 years in the making.

Auster, who passed away in 2024, built his reputation following the 1985 publication of the novella City of Glass, a postmodern detective story in which a writer of detective fiction impersonates a private investigator after receiving a mysterious phone call from a wrong number.

The story blends metafiction and a surrealist sensibility as Auster plays with the tropes of mystery stories to explore themes of identity and meaning.

Auster produced two more loosely connected novellas in the same vein the following year—Ghosts and The Locked Room—and the trio was collected in its current form as The New York Trilogy in 1987.

Though Paul Auster would go on to write many well-received novels, including The Music of Chance, Leviathan, and Mr. Vertigo, as well as memoirs, poetry, essays, and screenplays, The New York Trilogy remains his touchstone work. The graphic adaptation by Karasik, Mattotti, and Mazzucchelli effectively captures and enhances Auster’s surreal neo-noir tales into a visual narrative that film and other media would fail to realize.

Just as the trilogy began life as a standalone novella, the graphic adaptation first emerged with the publication of Neon Lit: Paul Auster’s City of Glass—A Graphic Mystery in 1994 from Avon Books. Maus auteur Art Spiegelman championed the effort, with the text adapted by Paul Karasik, now an award-winning independent cartoonist who began his career at Spiegelman’s RAW magazine, and art provided by David Mazzucchelli, better known at the time for his work on Marvel’s Daredevil and DC’s Batman: Year One.

The work was embraced by fans of both comics and modern lit, leading to a re-issue in 2004 as City of Glass: The Graphic Novel with an introduction by Spiegelman. Now, Karasik has brought the adapted trilogy to completion, collaborating with Italian artist Lorenzo Mattotti on Ghosts and flying solo on The Locked Room.

Karasik demonstrates a deep respect for his source material in adapting Auster’s text, hewing tightly to the novellas’ dialogue and exploration of language, unreliable narrators, and the nature of storytelling while allowing the artwork to enhance rather than overwhelm the original material. Each artist brings a distinct approach to the work while maintaining its noir sensibility through stark black-and-white illustrations.

Mazzucchelli frames City of Glass in a familiar 9-panel comic book grid, utilizing crisp lines and surreal imagery to convey the steadily unraveling psyche of the story’s writer/detective protagonist. The clean, high-contrast artwork serves as an elegant visual translation of Auster’s clear, concise prose.

Mattotti, an Eisner award winner whose work has appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines, brings an entirely different but no less effective style to Ghosts. The story of a private detective named Blue investigating a man named Black for a client called White unfolds as a hybrid of comic book and storybook blending and contrasting text and visuals while driving the narrative forward through both channels. Mattotti uses textured pencils to create a softer, grittier look than Mazzucchelli’s.

The third novella, The Locked Room, tells the story of a creatively bankrupt writer who appropriates the work and life of his missing childhood friend, Fanshawe. Adapted solely by Karasik with a lighter touch and more freeform layouts than Mazzucchelli or Mattotti, The Locked Room nevertheless maintains the consistency and reverence for Auster’s work demonstrated throughout the adaptation.

Taken as a whole, the graphic adaptation of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy successfully translates the author’s prose into a visual narrative that enriches the original material. Fans of Auster’s work will find a rich new way to experience this classic material. Meanwhile, traditional comics readers will enjoy an engaging project from three masters of the medium utilizing their skills to full effect.