It's interesting happening upon the first published novel by a favorite author (Paul Auster). It's not going to find a place among the great literary works of the world, but it did have a glimmer of the author that he was to become. It was loaded with cliches in their original form or tweaked a bit ("what does that have to do with the price of pizza in the Bronx," which just might make it into my conversational speech). Of course, I've stated before that mediocre Auster is better than the best of just about any author out there ( )