From Publishers Weekly
The arresting stories in this slim collection by Auster (The New York Trilogy, etc.) go a long way toward answering the perennial question "Why write?" The book contains four short narratives: "The Red Notebook," "It Don't Mean a Thing," "Accident Report" and "Why Write?" All the tales and vignettes, hovering somewhere between fact and fiction, feature amazing little coincidences or linkages. In one brief chapter, Auster (as protagonist) loses a dime in a gutter in Brooklyn only to look down and find a dime later the same day. In another, he checks into a hotel room in an obscure hotel in Paris and finds a crumpled message from the desk to a close friend the previous occupant of the room. The most affecting stories, however, recount a more ineffable sense of connection: Auster makes it to the foot of a staircase to catch his little daughter just in time to keep her from sailing through a window; as a boy at summer camp, he is on a group hike when the boy next to him is struck by lightning and killed. What all the stories have in common is not a fixed outcome or meaning but a sense of the patterned meaningfulness of life. Readers will glimpse here how the act of witnessing itself provides the punch line. As Auster learned the hard way when he met Willie Mays one day and didn't have a pencil to get an autograph, the sense of wonder burgeons when we can record its source on paper.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
The Times Literary Supplement
One of America's most spectacularly inventive writers.
Boston Globe
Auster has added some new dimensions to modern literature and—more importantly even—to our perspectives on the planet.
Kirkus Reviews
Our pre-eminent novelist of ideas.
The Wall Street Journal
A literary original who is perfecting a genre of his own.
Review of Contemporary Fiction, Valerie Ellis, Spring 2003
There's a quiet sadness to these stories, a sense that... identities...are more fragile than we'd like to believe.
Oliver Herford, The Red Notebook, 30 January 2004
These outlandish miniatures are trademark Auster pieces....playful, disingenuous, and brazenly artificial, in spite of assurances to the contrary.
About the Author
Paul Auster has earned international praise for the imaginative power of his many novels, including The New York Trilogy, Moon Palace, The Music of Chance, Mr. Vertigo, and Timbuktu. He has also published a number of highly original non-fiction works: The Invention of Solitude, Hand to Mouth, and The Art of Hunger.
Red Notebook: True Stories FROM THE PUBLISHER
In The Red Notebook, Auster again explores events from the real world - large and small, tragic and comic - that reveal the unpredictable, shifting nature of human experience. A burnt onion pie, a wrong number, a young boy struck by lightning, a man falling off a roof, a scrap of paper discovered in a Paris hotel room - all these form the context for a singular kind of ars poetica, a literary manifesto without theory, cast in the irreducible forms of pure story telling.
FROM THE CRITICS
Boston Globe
Auster has added some new dimensions to modern literature and—more importantly even—to our perspectives on the planet.
Times Literary Supplement
One of America's most spectacularly inventive writers.
Wall Street Journal
A literary original who is perfecting a genre of his own.
Book Magazine - Kevin Greenberg
Chance, coincidence and mystery converge in this original collection of true stories from one of America's most compelling novelists. The book documents everyday events which nonetheless hint at the magical. Taking an atypical route home, a man meets a stranger who offers him her copy of the out-of-print book he's been searching for unsuccessfully. Near starvation in rural France, the author and his then-girlfriend are saved by the unexpected arrival of a man named Sugar. This slim volume features uncanny, often powerful, stories from Auster's own life, as well as those related to him by friends or acquaintances. Accessible and elegant, itﾽs a great read.
Publishers Weekly
The arresting stories in this slim collection by Auster (The New York Trilogy, etc.) go a long way toward answering the perennial question "Why write?" The book contains four short narratives: "The Red Notebook," "It Don't Mean a Thing," "Accident Report" and "Why Write?" All the tales and vignettes, hovering somewhere between fact and fiction, feature amazing little coincidences or linkages. In one brief chapter, Auster (as protagonist) loses a dime in a gutter in Brooklyn only to look down and find a dime later the same day. In another, he checks into a hotel room in an obscure hotel in Paris and finds a crumpled message from the desk to a close friend the previous occupant of the room. The most affecting stories, however, recount a more ineffable sense of connection: Auster makes it to the foot of a staircase to catch his little daughter just in time to keep her from sailing through a window; as a boy at summer camp, he is on a group hike when the boy next to him is struck by lightning and killed. What all the stories have in common is not a fixed outcome or meaning but a sense of the patterned meaningfulness of life. Readers will glimpse here how the act of witnessing itself provides the punch line. As Auster learned the hard way when he met Willie Mays one day and didn't have a pencil to get an autograph, the sense of wonder burgeons when we can record its source on paper. Agent, Carol Mann. (June 28) Forecast: Auster has always been a genre bender, and here he sets readers a new puzzle. There is sure to be discussion about just how "true" these stories are, which should stimulate interest in the collection. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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