Title: Hand to Mouth
Subtitle: a chronicle of early failure
First published: 1997
Description: This is the story of a young man's struggle to stay afloat. By turns poignant and comic, Paul Auster's memoir is essentially an autobiographical essay about money - and what it means not to have it.

From one odd job to the next, from one failed scheme to another, Auster investigates his own stubborn compulsion to make art, and describes his ingenious, often farfetched attempts to survive on next to nothing. From the streets of New York City and Paris to the rural roads of Upstate New York, the author treats us to a series of remarkable adventures and unforgettable encounters and, in several elaborate appendixes, to previously unknown work from these years.

Here are three plays that contain the seeds of inspiration for some of Auster's future work, a tabletop baseball game (complete with cards and rules), and a pseudonymous detective novel - the author's first full-length novel. Each is an example of Auster's effort to make money; each is an illustration of the artist's mind at work. The result is a book of manifold delights and discoveries, an autobiography that resembles no other.
Subjects: Homes and haunts, American Authors, Economic aspects of Authorship, Intellectual life, Americans, Authorship, Economic aspects, Biography, History, Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)., Auster, paul, 1947-, Authors, biography, New York Times reviewed, Auster, Paul, 1947-, Homes, Literatura norte-americana, Biographies, Histoire, Écrivains américains, 20e siècle, Americains, Résidences et lieux familiers, Autobiografie
Places: Paris, France, New York (State), New York, Paris (France), New York (N.Y.), New York (Etats-Unis ; état)
People: Paul Auster (1947-), Paul Auster
Time periods: 20th century, 20e siècle