The Story Archive

Leviathan

Paul Auster · 1992 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Contemporary

A novelist reads that a man has blown himself apart at a Wisconsin roadside, recognises who it must have been, and begins setting down everything he knows before the federal agents reach the same conclusion. His friend had abandoned his own books to travel the country detonating replicas of the Statue of Liberty and issuing statements signed the Phantom of Liberty. Reconstructed out of fifteen years of friendship, a chain of coincidences and one fall from a fire escape, it took the Prix Médicis étranger.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalPsychologicalMystery
Theme
BetrayalFreedom vs FateIdentity & SelfGuilt & Conscience
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
The DoubleRebel / OutlawEveryman
Plot structure
Frame NarrativeNonlinear / FracturedConfession
Symbol / motif
The Book / ManuscriptFire
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
IronicRealist
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues