In all three novels, the main characters are manipulated into situations, find themselves trapped, and don’t have the strength of will to extricate themselves before their lives are ruined. In City of Glass, Daniel Quinn struggles to withdraw himself from the Stillman case. When he eventually does, it is too late for him psychologically. In Ghosts, Blue continues with an assignment which takes him to the brink of insanity and causes him to lose his fiancee. In The Locked Room, the writer becomes trapped as he reviews the works of his old childhood friend Fanshawe. He is so preoccupied with this, and with proving that he is better than Fanshawe, that he almost loses his sanity. He is only saved from this when his wife tells him that they must consider Fanshawe dead in order for their marriage to survive.

Obsession is another very important theme which runs throughout Auster’s three New York novels. In all three, the main characters become obsessed with the cases which they are working on. This obsession causes them to lose their own identities as they cut themselves off from the world. In City of Glass, Quinn ends up homeless for a number of months. He then becomes the subject of an experiment which leaves him forever psychologically changed. In Ghosts, Blue becomes obsessed with Black. And, in The Locked Room, the writer is so obsessed with Fanshawe that he suffers a breakdown.