Made up of three short novels, Paul Auster's 'New York Trilogy' examines the changing identity of the main characters in a novel, while also investigating "the imbalance between the physical author of a book, the individual who puts his name onto the cover, and the authentic author who I am not certain is the same person".1 The first part, 'City of Glass', uses the conventions of the crime thriller in a metaphysical apologue about man …showed first 75 words of 4798 total…

…showed last 75 words of 4798 total… believes no one truly knows himself, and each protagonist uses the identity of others to get closer to finding resolution, as Fanshawe finally does in 'The Locked Room.' Yet ultimately, the nature of the trilogy means that this is merely one interpretation: "It's not a mathematical equation to solve. One hope's it's exhaustible, and that you're going to keep thinking about it and keep testing your reaction and come up with new things."14