4 3 2 1

✍ Scribed by Auster, Paul

• Publisher: Picador Henry Holt and Company
• Year: 2017;2018
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 601 KB
• Edition: First Picador edition
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

* Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize * * *Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post*, The New York Times Book Review, *NPR, The Globe and Mail, Kirkus Reviews, Huffington Post, and The Spectator UK**

“An epic bildungsroman . . . . Original and complex . . . . A monumental assemblage of competing and complementary fictions, a novel that contains multitudes.”—Tom Perrotta, The New York Times Book Review

“A stunningly ambitious novel, and a pleasure to read. . . . An incredibly moving, true journey.”*—*NPR

New York Times Bestseller, Los Angeles Times Bestseller,* Boston Globe* Bestseller, National Indiebound Bestseller******

Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson’s pleasures and ache from each Ferguson’s pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson’s life rushes on.

As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force.

**

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2017: Paul Auster’s 4321 is his first novel in seven years, and it feels extra personal. Details of a life spent growing up in Brooklyn—of loving the Brooklyn Dodgers, Laurel and Hardy, summer camp—are laid out with the earnest intensity of a writer looking back on his life. Plot points arise—for instance, a person is killed by lightning—which mimic more unique moments from Auster’s own life experience. At nearly 900 pages, it is also a long novel—but a reason for that is 4321 tells the story of its protagonist, Archie Ferguson, four different times. What remains consistent throughout Archie’s life (or lives) is that his father starts out with the same career, Archie falls in love with the same girl, and his personality seems more nature than nurture. But those are starting off points, and if our lives are the sum of our choices, they are the sum of other people’s choices as well. Circumstances matter, and what will keep you thinking about this book is the convergence of time and circumstance within each of Archie’s different lives. His past propels him, his circumstances form him, and regardless of which life we are reading, time will ultimately take him. --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review

Review

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2017 MAN BOOKER PRIZE

"Contemporary American writing at its best: crisp, elegant, brisk. It has the illusion of effortlessness that comes only with fierce discipline. As often happens when you are in the hands of a master, you read the next sentence almost before you are finished with the previous one."  —*New York Times Book Review *

"One of America's greatest living novelists." —The Observer (U.K.)

"Auster's ruminations on death, family, memory, and marriage are both poignant and delightful." —The New Yorker

"Paul Auster is definitely a genius." —Haruki Murakami

"It is the rarest of books – a masterpiece by a genius." —NJ.com

"Certain books leave readers feeling they know every minute detail of a character's inner life, as if they were lifelong companions and daily confidants. . . . and for readers who like taking the scenic route, getting taken for a ride will be worth it." —Time

" . . . the novel is distinguished by the surprisingly muted exploitation of its high-concept premise." —The New York Review of Books

"Audacious in conception and execution. . . . packed with cerebral and physical activity, meticulously wrought and written in prose so energised that, at times, it leaves one breathless." —Moira Lovell, bookslive.co.za

"A stunningly ambitious novel, and a pleasure to read. Auster's writing is joyful, even in the book's darkest moments, and never ponderous or showy. . . . an incredibly moving, true journey." —Michael Shaub, *NPR

*"4 3 2 1features a distinctly different style than any [Auster has] written fiction in before. Breathless, propulsive, almost Kerouac-like in its tidal force." —*The Brooklyn Rail*

"We're lured in by Auster's fine-grained scene-setting and intrigue at his intentions." —Anthony Cummins, The Guardian

“Wonderfully clever . . . . 4 3 2 1 is much more than a piece of literary gamesmanship . . . . It is a heartfelt and engaging piece of storytelling that unflinchingly explores the 20th century American experience in all its honour and ignominy. This is, without doubt, Auster’s magnumopus. . . . A true revelation . . . One can’t help but admit they are in the presence of a genius.” ―Toronto Star

"Auster's narrative is never anything less than stylistically assured, his humour and humanity perfectly balanced." —The Independent

" . . . ambitious and sprawling . . . " —USA Today

"It's tempting to think about how our lives might have turned out if we had made different decisions, or if fate had dealt us a different hand. With this brilliantly rendered, intricately plotted epic, Auster has indulged that temptation and turned it into a magnum opus." —Columbia Magazine

* Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize * * *Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post*, The New York Times Book Review, *NPR, The Globe and Mail, Kirkus Reviews, Huffington Post, and The Spectator UK**

“An epic bildungsroman . . . . Original and complex . . . . A monumental assemblage of competing and complementary fictions, a novel that contains multitudes.”—Tom Perrotta, The New York Times Book Review

“A stunningly ambitious novel, and a pleasure to read. . . . An incredibly moving, true journey.”*—*NPR

New York Times Bestseller, Los Angeles Times Bestseller,* Boston Globe* Bestseller, National Indiebound Bestseller******

Paul Auster’s greatest, most heartbreaking and satisfying novel—a sweeping and surprising story of birthright and possibility, of love and of life itself.

Nearly two weeks early, on March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson’s life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four identical Fergusons made of the same DNA, four boys who are the same boy, go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Athletic skills and sex lives and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Each Ferguson falls under the spell of the magnificent Amy Schneiderman, yet each Amy and each Ferguson have a relationship like no other. Meanwhile, readers will take in each Ferguson’s pleasures and ache from each Ferguson’s pains, as the mortal plot of each Ferguson’s life rushes on.

As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, yet with a passion for realism and a great tenderness and fierce attachment to history and to life itself that readers have never seen from Auster before. 4 3 2 1 is a marvelous and unforgettably affecting tour de force.

**

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of February 2017: Paul Auster’s 4321 is his first novel in seven years, and it feels extra personal. Details of a life spent growing up in Brooklyn—of loving the Brooklyn Dodgers, Laurel and Hardy, summer camp—are laid out with the earnest intensity of a writer looking back on his life. Plot points arise—for instance, a person is killed by lightning—which mimic more unique moments from Auster’s own life experience. At nearly 900 pages, it is also a long novel—but a reason for that is 4321 tells the story of its protagonist, Archie Ferguson, four different times. What remains consistent throughout Archie’s life (or lives) is that his father starts out with the same career, Archie falls in love with the same girl, and his personality seems more nature than nurture. But those are starting off points, and if our lives are the sum of our choices, they are the sum of other people’s choices as well. Circumstances matter, and what will keep you thinking about this book is the convergence of time and circumstance within each of Archie’s different lives. His past propels him, his circumstances form him, and regardless of which life we are reading, time will ultimately take him. --Chris Schluep, The Amazon Book Review

Review

"[Paul] Auster's deep understanding of his characters, soothing baritone, and skillful pacing...deliver an immensely satisfying experience overall for listeners"

-AudioFile Magazine

**"[Paul] Auster’s compelling, mesmerizing voice so embodies all the Fergusons that “4321” is ...worth an entire week’s worth of listening." -Winston-Salem Journal

",,,[I]nnovative, captivating and brilliantly crafted...Auster's compelling baritone voice." -Inside Jersey

“An epic bildungsroman . . . . Original and complex . . . . It’s impossible not to be impressed – and even a little awed – by what Auster has accomplished. . . . A work of outsize ambition and remarkable craft,a monumental assemblage of competing and complementary fictions, a novel that contains multitudes.”―Tom Perrotta, The New York Times Book Review

“A stunningly ambitious novel, and a pleasure to read. Auster’s writing is joyful even in the book’sdarkest moments, and never ponderous or showy. . . . An incredibly moving, true journey.”―*NPR *

“Ingenious . . . . Structurally inventive and surprisingly moving. . . . 4 3 2 1 reads like [a] big social drama . . . while also offering the philosophical exploration of oneman’s fate.”―*Esquire *

“Mesmerizing . . . Continues to push the narrative envelope. . . . Four distinct characters whose lives diverge and intersect in devious, rollicking ways, reminiscent of Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. . . . Prismatic and rich in period detail, 4 3 2 1 reflects the high spirits of postwar America as well as the despair coiled, asplike, in its shadows.”―O, the Oprah Magazine

“Sharply observed . . . . Reads like a sprawling, 19th-century novel.”―The Wall Street Journal

“Ambitious and sprawling . . . . Immersive . . . . Auster has a startling ability to report the world in novel ways.”―USA Today

“The power of [Auster’s] best work is . . . his faithful pursuit of the mission proposed in The Invention of Solitude, to explore the ‘infinite possibilities of a limited space’ . . . . The effect [of 4 3 2 1] is almost cubist in its multidimensionality―that of a single, exceptionally variegated life displayed in the round. . . . [An] impressively ambitious novel.”―Harper’s Magazine

“Auster’s magnificent new novel is reminiscent ofInvisible in that it deals with the impossibility of containing a lifein a single story . . . . Undeniably intriguing . . . . A mesmerizing **chronicle of one character’s four lives . . . The finest―though one hopes, farfrom final―act in one of the mightiest writing careers of the last half century.”―Paste Magazine

“Wonderfully clever . . . . 4 3 2 1 is much more than a pieceof literary gamesmanship . . . . It is a heartfeltand engaging piece of storytelling that unflinchingly explores the 20thcentury American experience in all its honor and ignominy. This is, withoutdoubt, Auster’s magnum opus. . . . A true revelation . . . One can’t help but admit they are in the presence of a genius.”―Toronto Star

“A multitiered examination of the implications of fate . . . in which the structure of the book reminds us of its own conditionality. . . . A signifier of both possibility and its limitations.”―The Washington Post

“At the heart of this novel is a provocative question: What would have happened if your life hadtaken a different turn at a critical moment? . . . Ingenious**.”―Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Auster presents four lovingly detailed portrayals ofthe intensity of youth – of awkwardness and frustration, but also of passion forbooks, films, sport, politics and sex. . . . [Trying] to think of comparisons [to the novel] . . . [nothing] is exactly right . . . . What he is driving at is not only the role of contingency and the unexpected, but the ‘what-ifs’ that haunt us, the imaginary lives we hold in our minds that run parallel to our actual existence.”―The Guardian

“Draws the reader in fromthe very first sentence and does not let go until the very end. . . . An absorbing, detailed account – four accounts! – of growing up in the decades following World War II. . . . Auster’sprose is never less than arresting .. . . In addition to being a bildungsroman, “4321” is a “künstlerroman,” aportrait of the artist as a young man whose literary ambition is evident evenin childhood. . . . I emerged from . . . this prodigious book eager for more.”―San Francisco Chronicle

“Leaves readers feeling they know every minute detail of [Ferguson’s] inner life, as if they were lifelong companions and daily confidants. . . . It’s like an epic game of MASH: Will Ferguson grow up in Montclair or Manhattan? Excel in baseball or basketball? Date girls or love boys too? Live or die? . . . A detailed landscape . . . for readers who like taking the scenic route.”―TIME Magazine

“Auster pays tribute to what Rose Ferguson thinks of as a ‘dear, dirty, devouring New York, the capital of human faces, the horizontal Babel of human tongues.’. . . Sprawling . . . occasionally splendid.”―The New Yorker

“A bona fide epic . . . both accessible and formally daring.”―Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Inventive, engrossing.”―St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Arresting .. . . A hugely accomplished work, a novel unlike any other.”―The National (UAE)

“Brilliantly rendered,intricately plotted . . . a magnum opus.”―Columbia Magazine

“Auster’s first novel inseven years is . . . . an ingenious move . . . . Auster’s sense of possibility, his understanding of what all his Fergusons have in common, with us and one another, is a kind of quiet intensity, a striving to discover who they are. . . . [He] reminds us that not just life, but also narrative is always conditional, that it only appears inevitable after the fact.”―Kirkus (starred review)

“Auster has been turning readers’ heads for three decades, bending the conventions of storytelling . . . . He now presents his most capacious, demanding, eventful, suspenseful, erotic, structurally audacious, funny, and soulful novel to date . . . [a] ravishing opus.”―Booklist (starred review)

“Rich and detailed. It’s about accidents of fate, and the people and works of art and experiences that shape our lives even before our birth―what reader doesn't vibrate at that frequency?”―Lydia Kiesling, Slate

“Auster illuminates how the discrete moments in one’s life form the plot points of a sprawling narrative, rife with possibility.”―Library Journal (starred review)

“Mesmerizing . . . . A wonderful work of realist fiction and well worth the time.”―Read it Forward

“Frisky and sinuous . . . energetic. . . . A portrait of a cultural era coming into being . . . the era that is our own.”―Tablet magazine

“Almost everything about Auster's new novel is big. . . Satisfyingly rich in detail . . . . A significant and immersive entry to a genre that stretches back centuriesand includes Augie March and Tristram Shandy.”―Publishers Weekly