Sunset Park - Paul Auster - A Short Summary & Review
Sunset Park - Paul Auster - A Short Summary & Review
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
A Rite of Fancy Book Recommendation and Review
A short summary:
Sunset Park centers on Miles Heller, a young man who flees Florida under the weight of guilt and unresolved grief, returning to New York to drift among abandoned homes and unfinished lives. As Miles settles into a Brooklyn squat with a loose collective of artists and outsiders, the novel traces the uneasy ways people avoid adulthood, through exile, nostalgia, anger, or stubborn idealism.
Auster interweaves multiple perspectives to show how private wounds spill outward, shaping relationships and choices. What emerges is a portrait of stalled transition: lives paused between youth and responsibility, where avoidance masquerades as freedom.
My favorite quote from the book:
Questions to ponder while reading:
My review:
I was frustrated with Miles, and I think that’s intentional.
Sunset Park is about immaturity dressed up as principle. Squatting feels less like resistance here and more like refusal, and Auster never fully romanticizes it. The novel is honest about how self-exile can become a habit rather than a solution.
Losing one’s temper often goes badly, and Sunset Park shows how anger, left unexamined, calcifies into consequence. This is a thoughtful, occasionally exasperating novel about wounded people circling adulthood without quite entering it. It doesn’t offer easy redemption, only the hard truth that growth requires confrontation, not retreat.
_____________________________________________________________________________
About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
✨ #TakeTheBackRoads
Enjoyed this post? Support the adventure by visiting my sponsors, shopping the gallery, or buying me a cup of coffee!
