This paper provides a close analysis of Paul Auster’s novels, City of Glass (1985), Ghosts (1986), and The Locked Room (1986), which were subsequently republished as The New York Trilogy (1990). It begins with a discussion of postmodernist writing in order to prepare for reading Auster’s anti-detective novel as a type of postmodernist parody. As the term itself suggests, the anti-detective story differs from the conventional detective story. This difference is best conceptualized in terms of Brian McHale’s distinction between the epistemological and ontological points of view. From the epistemological view, the reader experiences the textual world of the hard-boiled detective story as stable, which allows him or her to reflect upon their own world by way of comparison. With the anti-detective story, however, this stability breaks down. Blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, the part played by the reader in the prcessof reading will be emphasized in order to make strange the concept of “realistic reading.” The paper then turns to an investigation of The New York Trilogy in terms of narrative style. It highlights the work’s failure to satisfy the conventions of the detective genre and its success in frustrating the reader’s expectations. The result is the reader’s heightened awareness of the sheer opacity of the textual world.