4 3 2 1 cover art

4 3 2 1

Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

4 3 2 1

By: Paul Auster
Narrated by: Paul Auster
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £19.90

Buy Now for £19.90

Summary

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017

Narrated by the award-winning author himself, this epic tale invites you into a world where the fate of a single person takes four different turns. Graceful and eloquent, it's a touching story of how a life can be dramatically altered by the choices you make.

Paul Auster's first novel in seven years. His greatest, most provocative, most heartbreaking, most satisfying work. A sweeping story of birthright and possibility, of love and the fullness of life itself. A masterpiece.

This audiobook contains exclusive bonus material in the form of an interview with the author.

On March 3, 1947, in the maternity ward of Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, Archibald Isaac Ferguson, the one and only child of Rose and Stanley Ferguson, is born. From that single beginning, Ferguson's life will take four simultaneous and independent fictional paths. Four Fergusons made of the same genetic material, four boys who are the same boy, will go on to lead four parallel and entirely different lives. Family fortunes diverge. Loves and friendships and intellectual passions contrast. Chapter by chapter, the rotating narratives evolve into an elaborate dance of inner worlds enfolded within the outer forces of history as, one by one, the intimate plot of each Ferguson's story rushes on across the tumultuous and fractured terrain of mid twentieth-century America. A boy grows up - again and again and again.

As inventive and dexterously constructed as anything Paul Auster has ever written, 4 3 2 1 is an unforgettable tour de force, the crowning work of this masterful writer's extraordinary career.

Paul Auster is the best-selling author of Winter Journal, Sunset Park, Man in the Dark, The Brooklyn Follies, The Book of Illusions and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006 he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature and inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Among his other honours are the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke and the Prix Medicis Etranger for Leviathan. He has also been short-listed for both the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (The Book of Illusions) and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (The Music of Chance). His work has been translated into more than 30 languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

©2017 Paul Auster (P)2017 Macmillan Audio
Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction

Critic reviews

"One of the great writers of our time." ( San Francisco Chronicle)
All stars
Most relevant
I cannot describe how much I enjoyed this book - both the concept and the execution.
A new classic

Spectacularly Good

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

4321 is so well written and read I've listened to each episode twice over. Auster is bordering on becoming a master.

A Modern Epic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Wonderful story and it was a real bonus that it was narrated by the author. Particularly enjoyed listening to the interview with the author after the end of the book

Outstanding

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

A story of one boy growing up in America but is told as if he leads 4 different but simultaneous lives. It' s set in the mid 20th century and gives a good description of the way things were socially and politically. I am old enough to remember a lot of the things eg the burning of the draft papers and the race riots. The title 4 3 2 1 is showing how the different lives are told. Chapters are split into 4 points to indicate the separate lives of the same boy. The author reads the audible version of this book and gave me great pleasure in the way he did this. I enjoyed the interview recorded with Paul Auster at the end of the book. It gave additional information that was very interesting.

Loved every minute. Listen to the interview

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

longest book/audio book I've ever tackled. a little too long for my liking but the storyline/storylines were good enough to keep my interested to the end.
a very unique book with a clever structure that was easier to follow than I thought it would be.

long but worth it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews