City of Glass, Paul Auster

Paul Auster's novel, City of Glass
, and the graphic adaptation are an excellent pairing for a unit on genres.

This text pairing is valuable since Auster's work is often considered a postmodern or experimental appraoch to genres themselves. His novel is both within and against the conventions of detective fiction, and the graphic novel, of course, adds to the experimental nature of his work.

This unit may include Edgar Alan Poe's detective works to offer students a sense of the history of the genre within American literature; as noted on PoeStories.com: "Poe invented the detective story with tales like 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' and 'The Purloined Letter.' Sherlock Holmes and other fictional detectives would later be based on the characters that Poe created."