A book with no story

Saying I’m disappointed with the ending of City of Glass would be an understatement. From the beginning of the novel, we’re warned that you can’t necessarily believe anything to be as it seems. From this point on I became skeptical of everything mentioned/written in the story, believing that nothing was true or that the story was being told deceptively.

 

This book left me completely unsatisfied; it leaves a million questions unanswered. For one, where did Peter and Virginia Stillman go? For days their phone was busy, making them unreachable, and then they disappear. They had to have left before Quinn/Auster had taken his post for he would have seen them leave the apartment.

 

Secondly, Stillman’s twin is never addressed again. We had thought that since Quinn as an author thought that every single thing in a detective novel had significance, or at least the potential to be significant, that he would for sure reappear. Instead, we see him for that brief moment in Grand Central, we are confused, and then he is gone. Never addressed again.

 

Thirdly, Quinn goes insane…? He turns himself into a homeless man as he guards Peter Stillman, sees himself in a mirror and says, “this is how I always imagined myself.” Okay. Then he eventually finds his way into Peter’s apartment (all doors are unlocked, mind you, which would NEVER happen in NYC), and then lays on the floor naked for days, getting fed by an unknown, and then disappears forever.

 

We now understand where the “we” in the first page comes from. The author, who doesn’t say he is Paul Auster, finds the red notebook that contains Quinn’s detective journey. He doesn’t know Quinn at all, he isn’t making the story up. Quinn is a mystery to him as well. Quinn then disappears, never to be seen again.

 

This book is awful.

bryce rubin