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Article: As a Friend: a Novel.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Harvard Review
- Article date:
- June 1, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 Harvard Review. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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AS A FRIEND: A NOVEL by Forrest Gander
New Directions/2008/$13.95 CLOTH/ISBN 9780811217453
When we hear the word "novel," many of us anticipate a long work of fictional prose that recounts a unified story involving many characters, a large swath of time, and a complex plot. Yet as J. M. Coetzee reminds us in Elizabeth Costello (2003),"the word novel, when it entered the languages of Europe ... meant the form of writing that was formless, that had no rules, that made up its own rules as it went along." Despite the market demands of mega-conglomerate publishing, innovative writers such as David Markson, Carole Maso, and Steve Tomasula continue to subvert ...