The novel is set in Manhattan and the U.S. Southwest, and centers on the life of the narrator Marco Stanley Fogg and the two previous generations of his family.

Fogg starts college, and nine months later moves from the dormitory into his own apartment, furnished with 1492 books given to him by Uncle Victor.

After selling the books one by one in order to survive Fogg loses his apartment and seeks shelter in Central Park.

Fogg learns about the complicated history of his parents, and Effing’s previous identity as the painter Julian Barber.

When Effing dies, leaving money to Fogg, Marco and Kitty Wu set up a house together in Chinatown.

He begins his journey with his father Solomon Barber, who dies shortly after an accident at Westlawn Cemetery, where Fogg's mother is buried.

Marco continues his journey alone, which ends on a lonely California beach: "This is where I start, ... this is where my life begins."

The day before he is thrown out, Marco decides to ask Zimmer, an old college friend with whom he has lost contact, for help.

Although life in Central Park is not very comfortable, he feels at ease because he's enjoying his solitude and he restores the balance between his inner and outer self.

This part devoted to Central Park may be considered an echo to the main themes of Transcendentalism and the works of Thoreau and Whitman.

Zimmer (the German word for room) is a good friend, hosts Marco in his apartment, bears all his expenses, and helps him to recover.

They lose touch, and when, after thirteen years, they happen to run into each other in a busy street, Marco learns that Zimmer has married and become a typical middle-class citizen.

Byrne fell from a high place and the guide fled, leaving Barber alone in the middle of the desert.

"discovers" Kitty Wu and Uncle Victor gives him 1492 books, like the year of the discovery of "The New World" by Columbus).

"Fogg" originally comes from Fogelmann (probably, deriving from German "Vogel" - "bird" and "Mann" - "man"), which was changed to Fog by the immigration department.

"Around the World in Eighty Days" is also referred to in the book as Marco happens to see the 1956 movie adaption twice.

Uncle Victor - the brother of Marco's mother - is a "spindly, beak-nosed bachelor" of forty-three who earns his living as a clarinetist.

Although he lacks ambition, Uncle Victor must have been a good musician because for some time he is a member of the famous Cleveland Orchestra.

Uncle Victor is also quite open-minded, likes movies and is fairly well-read, with 1492 books - a number obviously meant to remind us of the year when Columbus discovered America.

He was married to Elizabeth Wheeler, a young woman who, after the marriage, was a repeat victim of marital rape.

Julian Barber eventually wanted to travel to the West and as his wife got scared he would not come back, she spent one night with him.

[citation needed] He started a new life as Thomas, and was then attacked which resulted in an accident that caused him to become paralyzed.

Next he moves into a big New York apartment with his housemaid 'Mrs Hume' and his assistant Pavel Shum, a Russian student he met in Paris.

Marco must read all kinds of books to him, describe the Manhattan scenery to the blind man while he takes him for walks in his wheelchair, and eventually has to write Effing's obituary.

Kitty is a girl with Chinese roots who falls in love with Marco and helps in searching for him during his Central Park period.

[1]A more prosaic explanation of the title is that the Moon Palace was a Chinese restaurant (now defunct) in the Morningside Heights neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, which was a popular student hangout when Auster was studying at Columbia University.

He was a descendant of an Austrian Jewish family, born on the Third of February 1947 in Newark, New Jersey, which is about 15 miles west of New York City.

Samuel Auster was a businessman who left the house in the morning before his son was awake and returned home when he was already in bed.

In 2009, Audible.com produced an audio version of Moon Palace, narrated by Joe Barrett, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.