Heather Nielsen

Oh, very good question.

Initially, I was a little bit apprehensive about it, thinking, you know, when people do this, when it's clearly largely memoir, but they call it a novel, they're trying to have it both ways.

I was worried about that in the case of Jay Parini's book, Borges and Me, which I alluded to earlier.

But, you know, it

He was overt enough about what he was doing that it dispelled my concerns.

And the same thing with this.

Having read the whole thing, I can now see why he's done it this way.

He calls attention to the fact that we're reading a construct repeatedly.

It's a very distinctive book that it could really only have been written from his own experience, but he's constantly reminding us

We are reading something constructed or reconstructed.

Lots of allusions to other writers.

I mentioned Philip Roth's The Plot Against America earlier, and Philip Roth is one of the people he pointedly refers to as an influence.

It's a deliberate mix of a genre with a lot of direct addresses to the reader to sort of say, think about this, think about what I'm doing here.

And even occasionally elaborate, quite funny footnotes just to disconcert us.

I mean, in one of the interviews that he's conducted, I think one of the ones in the United States,

He refers to wanting to leave the reader a little bit confused as to what is real and what is not.

And so, you know, in a way, I'd have to think more about it to reach a really definitive answer.

But as one reads the book, it makes sense.

Yes, and it's interesting because in a way I wanted some of the characters to be real.

I even found myself after I finished the book Googling some to see if they really existed.