Paul Auster takes us into his early childhood and describes how he gradually grows into an artist. Restlessly, he sits in tiny Parisian rooms, writing screenplays and love letters, pursuing and discarding ideas, experiencing the student revolt in New York, and increasingly dedicating himself to writing. It is the story of his awakening, a deeply personal coming-of-age novel. Auster writes here with great warmth and a light touch. The questions he poses to himself and to us carry weight: When does a person become aware of the coordinates that determine their life? When does the little boy from New Jersey recognize himself as an American? When does he see himself as an American Jew? This is the self-portrait of a world author as a young man - a book full of remembered images and stories.