The first story, City of Glass, features an author of detective fiction who becomes a private investigator and descends into madness as he becomes embroiled in the investigation of a case. It explores layers of identity and reality, from Paul Auster the writer of the novel to the unnamed "author" who reports the events as reality, to "Paul Auster the writer", a character in the story, to "Paul Auster the detective", who may or may not exist in the novel, to Peter Stillman the younger, to Peter Stillman the elder and, finally, to Daniel Quinn, the protagonist. "City of Glass" has an intertextual relationship with Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. Not only does the protagonist Daniel Quinn share his initials with the knight, but when Quinn finds "Paul Auster the writer," Auster is in the midst of writing an article about the authorship of Don Quixote. Auster calls his article an "imaginative reading," and in it he examines possible identities of Cide Hamete Benengeli, the narrator of the Quixote.
Ghosts
The second story, Ghosts, is about a private eye called Blue, trained by Brown, who is investigating a man named Black on Orange Street for a client named White. Blue writes written reports to White who in turn pays him for his work. Blue becomes frustrated and loses himself as he becomes immersed in the life of Black.
The Locked Room
The Locked Room is the story of a writer who lacks the creativity to produce fiction. Fanshawe, his childhood friend, has produced creative work, and when he disappears the writer publishes his work and replaces him in his family. The title is a reference to a "locked room mystery", a popular form of early detective fiction.
Adaptations
City of Glass was adapted in 1994 into a critically acclaimed experimental graphic novel by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli. It was published as in 2004. In 2009, Audible.com produced an audio version of The New York Trilogy, narrated by Joe Barrett, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks. In 2016, Edward Einhorn adapted City of Glass as a play Off-Broadway, at the New Ohio In 2017, Duncan Macmillan produced another adaptation as a play, which showed for a short periodat HOME in Manchester, before transferring to the Lyric, Hammersmith. It was a co-production between HOME, the Lyric, and 59 Productions.
Editions
Auster, Paul The New York Trilogy. .
Criticism
;Books
Barone, Dennis Beyond the Red Notebook . Two essays on City of Glass and The Locked Room, respectively.
Bloom, Harold Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Paul Auster . Several essays on The New York Trilogy.
Martin, Brendan Paul Auster's Postmodernity .
Nicol, Bran The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction . Chapter 7, 'Two postmodern genres: cyberpunk and detective fiction', includes a section on City of Glass.