The Music of Chance

From one of America's most original and startlingly imaginative writers, a novel with all the suspense and pace of a bestselling thriller.--The New York Times. A fireman and a gambler enter a poker game with two rich eccentrics, risking everything on the single blind turn of a card. What results is the product of a world of fiendish bargains and punitive whims. An exceptional (Los Angeles Times) tale of fate, loyalty, responsibility, and the real meaning of freedom, from the author of the forthcoming 4 3 2 1: A Novel A finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award

This rich and dazzling (Wall Street Journal) novel follows Jim Nashe who, after squandering an unexpected inheritance, picks up a young gambler named Jack Pozzi hoping to con two millionaires. But when their plans backfire, Jim and Jack are indentured by their elusive marks and are forced to build a meaningless wall with bricks gathered from ruins of an Irish castle. Time passes, their debts mount, and anger builds as the two struggle to dig themselves out of their Kafkaesque serfdom.

New York Times-bestselling author Paul Auster (The New York Trilogy) brings us back into his strange, shape-shifting world of fiendish bargains and punitive whims, where chance is a powerful yet unpredictable force.