Cans Lara gos eee eee ereeeier ey eno Pee See eo ere pene ersenpenrnge erie eer pene fae ee Posies evapo peer serena sy can ae Pompey ey speinris porerar npr 4 oreae er sae 4 Pare ean a Se pemeeoninie tae Peet eet eed eee aa ero ed ero pepeeeer pe ner) Pees regres end oeters aes Pera va ee renner a ere aera een eres Perr perrs pane a [sar vere rere [rent inane s Loney arama) Praga ceniglinecar rips rrepeensimegry tay Sie Oe cay cones é Aw art 4 a» a a a es é xWRONG NUMBER The music of historic change is now heard in some of the most citing works of contemporary crime ftion. These days, sophisticated verters ton to the comparative simples of crime fon to help spell cout the essential unease of out age. In this regard — and as our own leading examale — Paul Auste’s City of Glass appears to us today as 2n ufinished, pehaps ukimatlyunrishable diagram for some bold, new tnd experimental symphony. Ina book such 9 City of Gloss, we leave forever the honorble words of » Dashiell Hammett or » Reymond Chandler, and enter nto «far darker, more complex domain in Dashiell Hommet's word, decent, toush-minded indvals called private detectives still succeed in restoring the socal order, by redressing the cme of sn. In Auster’ era — our own era — crime i Inherent cant be reversed. And the social order wil not be restored, fort never existed in the fat place. Inthe new city, both the exminl and the detective have been assigned fate before the book even besins, # fate in whch no easy sense ofa lost Eden can posiby be regeined. Everything here i shadows. Thi it # wold in which only « neon Iteature right actly obtain “The sound of shattered glass, and the sight of jagged edges, is at the vey center of word and picture diven cime fiton. The old losis, ‘imply no longer calelate. “Commits crime,” Real Clue Comics tld us, a emly a8 in 1948, andthe world is made of sls.” In Paul Auster’ sity, we are driven back beyond even Hemmett and Chandler to the stil cater genius of « Si Contn Doyle. Compare, for example the role of deductive reasoning in both Auster and Doyle. With Doyle, deduction is everthing. With Auster, the clity of pure reason becomes « vas, sil musically interesting highway which, if pursued too rigorouly, can only lead sigh into the loony bin Tur, i you wil to one ofthe crowning moments inthis book =the moment when Austr’ sleuth, Daniel Quinn, fly confronts hit own Mosiaty, Peter Stilman’s unknown and ultimately unknowable Father. The men meetin parkcbench setting on Riverside Drive i the cy of New York. As in Dayle, both men ae hunch-maker, note takers, code- breaks, reason’ssientats — but in this city at lear, woch antl habits of mind won't do ether man any damn good. The is thereto engulf them. Everywhere, the shedows extend. The question thereore is not whether Paul Auster is «crime writer, anymore than it is whether Daniel Quinn i ral cme detective. Both the author and the character have n fact, fallen into tht wodd at tandom, and both wil choose the patterns of cme detection to tran seend the dedness which both know intuitively stands atthe heat ofthe post-modern condition. Quinn's journey wil fai For showing ut this world ins exactnes, and in its limitations, Auster, quite clenly, may Clem a wn Inthe end, this new neon erature isthe bteratur oficial human obtessivenes, It assumes slently thet when no convincing soci order can be established, the individual personality itel will start to unhinge. Its ancestors ate thor not Hammett, Chandler, or Dele; but Pee, Dostoyevsky, and perhaps James M. Cain. Tht new literate makes the point rather decvely, that, such «violent and ination] wo, itis not surprising when the deeds of ser! killer ae teken Kideously preci omens ofthe te nature of vr age. ‘And here, finaly, i where we make our own sit into thi landscape. In the hands of Paul Karate, who fist found the right, shythms, and David Massuecheli, who has brought these thythms to form, we move past he speed of sound to the actual speed of it in order to capture the switcher which occur thoughout the fallin, and out of human intellectual abstraction. A final lamp light It ageiat the cdkness? A shadow, afterall i stil sign The tension between the absolute geometies ofthe minds of Sillmon and Quin, and the abslte randoms ofthe word which wl ‘se up and swallow them, cannot be rendered any more exactly then it hasbeen in ths singular act of picture tion, the fist Neo Lit echton of Pal Avater's Gy of Ges ae lakesIY (EW lezzzzezzzz24 , |A) s be é yy INf we Ol|Olx ‘POPULATION DENSITYSiveenenr. = O-W-E AR } i AYeel OE 99 1001013) RES REAR LIN.RCC Cee ee oe re Crecente ear) ist private eye.” An unknown voice Pe eee eee erie for his help, drawing him into a Seo eer eee eee than any he ever created in print Pn eee ee eee rear! Mazzucchelli (Batman, Rubber Blanket) CP eee oe CCST IEEE) Ce Loe To COTO MTree tu reer ry Edger Award-nominated masterwork has been astonishingly transformed PCCM CL Tre es Neon Lit: Wher Cree)