Report from the Interior - by Paul Auster (Paperback)

About the Book

"Paul Auster's most intimate autobiographical work to dateIn the beginning, everything was alive. The smallest objects were endowed with beating hearts.Having recalled his life through the story of his physical self in Winter Journal, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster now remembers the experience of his development from within through the encounters of his interior self with the outer world in Report from the Interior.From his baby's-eye view of the man in the moon, to his childhood worship of the movie cowboy Buster Crabbe, to the composition of his first poem at the age of nine, to his dawning awareness of the injustices of American life, Report from the Interior charts Auster's moral, political, and intellectual journey as he inches his way toward adulthood through the postwar 1950s and into the turbulent 1960s.Auster evokes the sounds, smells, and tactile sensations that marked his early life--and the many images that came at him, including moving images (he adored cartoons, he was in love with films), until, at its unique climax, the book breaks away from prose into pure imagery: The final section of Report from the Interior recapitulates the first three parts, told in an album of pictures. At once a story of the times--which makes it everyone's story--and the story of the emerging consciousness of a renowned literary artist, this four-part work answers the challenge of autobiography in ways rarely, if ever, seen before. "--

Book Synopsis

Having recalled his life through the story of his physical self in Winter Journal, internationally acclaimed novelist Paul Auster remembers the experience of his development from within through the encounters of his interior self with the outer world in Report from the Interior.

In the beginning, everything was alive. The smallest objects were endowed with beating hearts . . .

From his baby's-eye view of the man in the moon, to his childhood worship of the movie cowboy Buster Crabbe, to the composition of his first poem at the age of nine, to his dawning awareness of the injustices of American life, Report from the Interior charts Auster's moral, political, and intellectual journey as he inches his way toward adulthood through the postwar 1950s and into the turbulent 1960s.

Auster evokes the sounds, smells, and tactile sensations that marked his early life--and the many images that came at him, including moving images (he adored cartoons, he was in love with films), until, at its unique climax, the book breaks away from prose into pure imagery: The final section of Report from the Interior recapitulates the first three parts, told in an album of pictures. At once a story of the times--which makes it everyone's story--and the story of the emerging consciousness of a renowned literary artist, this four-part work answers the challenge of autobiography in ways rarely, if ever, seen before.

Review Quotes

"On the basis of his five memoirs alone, Auster should be recognized as one of the great American prose stylists of our time." --The New York Times Book Review

"A high-wire explication of his inner life...Auster's phenomenal literary powers are generated by his equal fluency in matters emotional and cerebral. Here the origins of that sustaining duality are revealed." --Donna Seaman, Booklist

"Report from the Interior is a fetchingly original...examination of what it feels like to be a young person in a puzzle-world that still hasn't fallen into place. We all felt it as children; Auster has...put it into words." --Richmond Times-Dispatch

"[Auster is] the most distinguished American writer of the generation below Updike and Bellow, indeed its only author...with any claim to greatness." --The Spectator (London)

"[Auster's] autobiographical works are jewels perfectly cut, luminous little books." --The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Bloodbath Nation, Baumgartner, The Book of Illusions, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. Among his other honors are the Prix Médicis Étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, and the Premio Napoli for Sunset Park. In 2012, he was the first recipient of the NYC Literary Honors in the category of fiction. He was also a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions), the PEN/Faulkner Award (The Music of Chance), the Edgar Award (City of Glass), and the Man Booker Prize (4 3 2 1). Auster was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. He died at age seventy-seven in 2024.