Paul Auster
MAPLEWOOD, NJ — Paul Auster did not base his new coming-of-age novel “4 3 2 1” directly on his years growing up in South Orange, though that time of his life certainly can be viewed as an influence. Its impact is seen most clearly in that one of the book’s protagonists lives in nearby Maplewood and attends Columbia High School, Auster’s own alma mater. Another character lives in neighboring West Orange. Yet its greatest significance can be felt not in any specific event in the story, but in the characters’ underlying drives and beliefs informed by the acclaimed author’s own childhood spent in 1950s suburban New Jersey.
For as Auster recalled to the News-Record ahead of his Feb. 7 appearance at Maplewood’s Words Bookstore, his time in Essex County — especially his childhood in the South Orange-Maplewood area — was quite a formative period in his life.
“I was there from age 5 to 17,” Auster said in a Jan. 27 phone interview. “That’s 12 years of my early life. So all my experiences were there. All the schools I went to, all my friends — everyone came from there.”
That is not to say that “4 3 2 1” is autobiographical. The novel chronicles the lives of four versions of Archie Ferguson, who were each born to the same parents on the same day in 1947 but whose lives ultimately take different paths. Some of the divergences are slight, such as the four Fergusons growing up in separate Essex County communities. Others are more pronounced, with the boys developing more distinct personalities as they are molded by death, divorce and life experience.
Still, Auster did insert some moments from his own life into the Fergusons’, such as an extraordinary basketball game he played in Newark as a member of a West Orange YMHA team. Just like what happens to the fourth Ferguson, the author said his all-white team defeated the all-black team by a single point at the buzzer during a triple overtime. And just like in the book, he said the building erupted into bedlam, with his team having to flee the infuriated black fans. It is a dark memory for him, he said, though he used it in the book to teach his character that racial animosity cuts both ways.
Another experience the author shared is a moment that Auster said both inspired the novel and changed his life. While hiking at summer camp when he was 14, Auster and some other boys were caught in a brutal lightning storm. Seeking to get away from the trees, the boys started crawling single-file underneath a barbed wire fence to get to the clearing on the other side. Just as Auster was about to have his turn, lighting struck the fence and electrocuted the boy who was underneath it, mere inches away from Auster.
Auster pulled the boy into the meadow, but he was already dead. And the future novelist was never the same.
“This event has haunted me all of my life,” Auster said. “The realization that anything can happen at any moment — once you understand that, the ground you walk on is not very solid.”
Ever since that tragedy, Auster said he has viewed unforeseen events to be part of the “mechanics of reality.” As a result, the randomness of life has become a common theme in his work, with many of his stories driven by coincidences. His most famous work, the absurdist classic “The New York Trilogy,” is a prime example, featuring a writer who gets drawn into an investigation after he receives a phone call from someone asking for the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
The plot of “4 3 2 1” follows this trend, and Auster said that he wanted to explore the different avenues a person’s life could take depending on choices made. But the book is also dissimilar from most of the author’s previous works. For one, it is much more grounded in reality than one would expect from a proven master of absurdist fiction. At 866 pages, it is also much lengthier than any of his other, usually slim, tomes.
“It’s an elephant, there’s no question,” Auster said. “But I hope it’s a sprinting elephant.”
Part of the reason the novel is so big stems from the fact that it is essentially four books in one, Auster said. He also wrote with long sentences, something the once-brief author had experimented with in his last several books. He explained that he did not necessarily set out to write such a large book, but using extended sentences felt natural to him in telling the four Fergusons’ stories.
“It’s a way of dancing,” Auster said in describing his long sentences, which sometimes continue for pages. “I feel there’s a kind of whirl to it that creates a tremendous propulsion and at the same time seems to mirror the movement of thought.”
As long as the novel was, Auster said he enjoyed the opportunity to explore the similarities and differences between each of the four main characters. He also liked capturing their mindsets at each stage of life, whether as a little boy or grown man. For instance, he said one of the most fun parts of writing the book was describing a story that a 14-year-old Ferguson wrote about a talking pair of anthropomorphic shoes named Hank and Frank. That is just the type of thing a bright, precocious child would think to do, he said — not a man his own age.
Of course, writing such a large book is undoubtedly exhausting, and Auster said the process did indeed take a lot out of him. He said he wrote “4 3 2 1” for three solid years, forgoing any travel, interviews or readings. At the end of each day he would be depleted, he said, falling on his sofa and watching baseball games or old movies as a way of recuperating. The next day he would be back in his bunker again, writing away.
The novel was so consuming that, now that it is finished, Auster said he does not know what is next for him. He has a few ideas, but he said nothing concrete enough to mention. In fact, the author said he thinks it will take him awhile to come up with anything worth pursuing.
Outside of writing, however, Auster has one big goal in mind for 2018 — becoming president of PEN America, the nonprofit organization for writers championing free expression. The outspoken liberal has been an active member of the organization in the past, at one point even engaging in a war of words with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan regarding his treatment of journalists. But now that the American people are facing a “new world” with the election of President Donald Trump, he said he feels compelled to become involved again.
At the same time though, Auster has no plans to give up writing novels. Much like the fourth Ferguson does in “4 3 2 1,” Auster said he has considered whether writing fiction is worthwhile when there is so much in the real world to speak out against. In the end, he realized that creating art is more important than people might understand.
“Novels talk about individuals and give individuals the dignity of selfhood and are explored thoroughly so that the reader will have a certain sympathy for people who are not like himself or herself,” Auster said, further explaining that writing fiction “is ultimately a political act.”
In the meantime, Auster looks forward to returning to the area he once called home. Though he said he longed to escape the confines of suburbia as a teen — another commonality he shares with all four Fergusons — he evidently never forgot the influence South Orange and Maplewood had on him.
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