Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel
(thebaffler.com)
Did the novels of the twentieth century accomplish anything? Edwin Frank, who is known for his love of the genre, is convinced they did. In his stylish, selective survey Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel, he focuses on the genre’s formal innovations, which take readers’ minds off their somewhat vulgar appetite for suspenseful plot and relatable character and teach them to be satisfied, instead, with something like a diet of single sentences, exquisitely prepared.
Did the novels of the twentieth century accomplish anything? Edwin Frank, who is known for his love of the genre, is convinced they did. In his stylish, selective survey Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel, he focuses on the genre’s formal innovations, which take readers’ minds off their somewhat vulgar appetite for suspenseful plot and relatable character and teach them to be satisfied, instead, with something like a diet of single sentences, exquisitely prepared.