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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.
December 3rd, 2018. The evening brought, perhaps, the worst rain storm I’ve seen since Hurricane Sandy. Yet, I decided to go out. On tap was something very special. Something I am now so glad I didn’t pass up. It seemed the gods were in my favor, as when I got outside into the full force of the gale, though instantly soaked, something miraculous happened. Something every New Yorker knows is impossible.
I got a cab in the rain!
I guess conditions were so bad that no one was out. I don’t know. I wasn’t about to look a gift cab in the mouth.
I climbed into the back seat and we headed south, I couldn’t see a thing out any of the windows- including the front windshield. Somehow, the driver found his way to Broadway & East 12th Street, and pulled up in front of The Strand Bookstore. The occasion: Paul Auster was releasing his New York Trilogy Manuscript, a fittingly oversized, slipcased limited edition, and speaking about it. I was interested because I thought it might provide insights into how an author works, how such a distinctive set came to be.
I got out and dashed from the cab to the door, then started the long process of drying off and out as I made my way to the 3rd floor and their Rare Book Room. I stood in the back as the proceedings got underway with writer Luc Sante handling the interviewer’s role.
I was transfixed as Mr. Auster spoke in a very low key manner with seemingly total recall taking my mind off my soaked pants. His road to the creation of the Trilogy was fascinating for any creative person to listen to, a real lesson in believing in your Art and perseverance. I related to his story about being told to “change the end.” When I was shopping a Jazz album I produced featuring the late, great Thomas Chapin, one label head offered me a very sizable sum if I agreed to let him change the drummer. It was a record recorded live in the studio. The drums bled into every mic in the room. You can’t change the drummer after the fact, I recalled, feeling Mr. Auster’s pain. He turned down that ending change request (as I walked away from a lot of money refusing to make the change), and the book remained unpublished for so long that he began to feel that he would remain an unpublished author…
Luckily, what transpired that evening was recorded! You can see it here-
Reliving it this evening, 2 days after Mr. Auster’s passing on April 30th, hearing him say “…part of me feels that I’m already dead…” about the book’s release, was chilling. It was just a year ago, in March, 2023, Siri Hustvedt, Mr. Auster’s wife, announced he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. 
After the talk, questions from the audience and the video ends, there was a signing. Both signed a paperback copy of the then current, umpteenth printing of Mr. Auster’s New York Trilogy paperback for me, with a cover by the great Art Spiegleman, and I sprung for the $200.00 Manuscript, which he also signed for me. In the intervening years, his 4 3 2 1, in 2017, and his final book, Baumgartner, released late last year, also impressed me with their singularity. Paul Auster’s ability to create such unimaginable scenarios with each book, while retaining familiar themes thrilled me, as Sir Salman Rushdie’s books do. I come away feeling that though Paul Auster is respected and lauded around the world, he is still underrated.
Paul Auster, just to the right of center, after the event. December 3, 2018. My last look before I headed back out into the storm. It would be my last look at him, too. .
Whether he is, or not, is now up to the future to decide. Luckily, his books are here and all in print for us to explore, enjoy and be inspired by right now. For my part, I’ll never forget hearing him speak so insightfully about his work, and briefly meeting him.
The signature page of a signed copy of his last book, Baumgartner, released in November, 2023.
Book signings are special events. They have the chance to bring you closer to the author and his or her work in more ways than one. Like this one, a number of them have lived long in my memory. Don’t pass one up the next time an author you’re interested in is having one.
*- Soundtrack for this piece is “Watching the Detectives” by Elvis Costello from his classic debut, My Aim Is True-
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