Revenants

In this second volume of his "New York Trilogy", Paul Auster introduces a cast of characters distinct from those in "City of Glass". The protagonists here are named Blue, White, and Black. Yet two of them are once again private detectives, and their ordeals in New York serve—once more—to highlight the precariousness of identity alongside the perverse, mirroring effects of fate. Consequently, the relentless surveillance—which keeps the reader as gripped as any top-tier thriller—leads us back to the questions raised in the first book, though this time with an escalating sense of tragedy. It becomes clear why Paul Auster’s rise among the writers of his generation has been as unstoppable as the metaphysical anguish into which he plunges us.