The novel opens like a detective story as the narrator begins, Six days ago, a man blew himself up by the side of a road in northern Wisconsin.

—Leviathan Through his own investigations, the narrator attempts to answer questions as to who the man was who blew himself up, why he was found with a homemade bomb, and what circumstances brought him to a violent end.

The story is told by Peter Aaron about the victim, Benjamin Sachs, his best friend whom he first meets as a fellow writer in a Greenwich Village bar in 1975.

At a party to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty, by freakish chance, Ben tumbles from a fourth-floor fire escape, nearly losing his life.

Upon discovering $165,000 in cash and a passport with the name Reed Dimaggio, he learns that the victim was the former husband of Maria's childhood friend, Lillian Stern.

Months after this final encounter, Peter reads about an accidental car bombing in Wisconsin, bringing the narrative back to the beginning.

The novel ends with FBI investigators confirming Ben's identity as the Phantom of Liberty by matching fingerprints against a signed copy of one of Peter's books.

Stylistically, Auster proves his themes through circuitous multi-layered writing, reporting conflicting personal accounts to inscribe subjective kinds of truth.