You’re bored, so you decide to go to the library’s website and look for a book to read. But, because you don’t know what you want to read, you check out the blog posts and see if there are any interesting suggestions. That’s when you stumble upon a blog post about metafiction–this one in fact–and you can’t help but wonder what’s going on, how the post is written directly at you, as though the writer knows that you’re reading it at this exact time and place. Feels a little creepy, right? Pulls you out of the story, right? If you’re curious about experimental styles of writing that constantly remind you that you’re reading a book, then perhaps you’d enjoy metafiction.
What is Metafiction and Why Do Readers Like It?
The best way I heard Metafiction described was a type of fiction that breaks the reader out of the story. It uses unconventional storytelling techniques (such as addressing the reader directly, footnotes, end-notes, weird asides, etc.) that draw attention to themselves. Perhaps the best example I can think of came from a book I was reading for school. At one point, the author stops telling the story and directly confronts and then threatens the reader. It was insane and I was so taken in by the concept!
Related Genres
There’s nothing quite like metafiction, but here are a few other types of books that either play around with various formats or have unusual methods of storytelling:
- Lipograms: Tells a story while only using certain letters or omitting them entirely
- Magical Realism: While it doesn’t get as structurally weird as metafiction, these stories can be a little odd
- Epistolary Novels: The entire novel is written through letters, text messages, etc.
- Alternate History: Tells a well-known story, but changes key details, making for a tale that is quite different
Reading Recommendations
The Boy Detective Fails (Joe Meno) In the twilight of a mysterious childhood full of wonder, Billy Argo, boy detective, is brokenhearted to find that his younger sister and crime-solving partner, Caroline, has committed suicide. Ten years later, Billy, age thirty, returns from an extended stay at St. Vitus’ Hospital for the Mentally Ill to discover the world full of unimaginable strangeness: office buildings vanish without reason, small animals turn up without their heads, and cruel villains ride city buses to complete their evil schemes. Lost within this unwelcoming place, Billy befriends two lonely, extraordinary children—one a science fair genius, the other a charming, silent bully. With a nearly forgotten bravery, he experiences the unendurable boredom of a telemarketing job; encounters a beautiful, desperate pickpocket; and confronts the nearly impossible solution to his sister’s case. Along a path laden with hidden clues and codes, the boy detective may learn the greatest secret of all: the necessity of the unknown. This weird, twisty novel features a secret decoder in the back of the book and cipher code in the footnotes. So strange!
Poison for Breakfast (Lemony Snicket) Author Lemony Snicket has just concluded his breakfast when he finds a note has been slipped under his door. The message? A warning that Snicket has just consumed poison with his morning repast. How horrible! What follows next is a strange, stream of consciousness story as Snicket attempts to track down the source of the deadly ingredient. Was it in his tea with honey? His egg (perfectly prepared)? As he follows the clues (a strange man wandering down the hill from his house, a fall in the park, etc.) the author goes on strange tangents about his childhood, his preferred way of being addressed by people, books that he’s read, a strange poem, and a woman known only as “the shoemaker”. Is there a story here? Sort of. But, this book is bound to be unlike most anything else you’ve read, and it’s an utter delight. I don’t often insist on the audiobook when it comes to reading recommendations (although I certainly enjoy listening to the story), but this is one that I definitely suggest you check out. Patrick Warburton’s narration is just the thing to bring this clever, and confusing story to life!
A Few Cards Short (Calen Templeton) Local author Calen Templeton has created one of the most interesting books I’ve picked up in a long time. Before you dive in, he suggests you get a deck of cards. Now, shuffle them up. And pick a card. Open his book, A Few Cards Short, to the correct chapter (don’t worry, they’re all named after cards, like Ace of Hearts or Three of Spades). Do this one a week for the entire year (coincidentally, a deck includes 52 cards and a year has 52 weeks!). Now, that’s how you’re supposed to read it. This librarian cheated and read it straight through. This does affect the reading experience in ways that I won’t tell you just yet. You’ll have to read the book to find out. For those of you who are still interested, Templeton’s collection of short stories are all memories and vignettes of his time growing up and living in the Cleveland area, and so many of these moments will feel familiar and relatable to local readers. It’s a very funny book, full of heart, and a pleasure to read. While the writing itself isn’t very “meta”, the format that’s required to read it properly certainly is!
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (Italo Calvino) This book holds the distinction for being not only one of the coolest books I’ve read, but also one of the most infuriating. You are the protagonist of If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, and you go to the bookstore to purchase–take a guess…If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. But, when you get the book home and start reading (the next chapter is the text of the book). you find that there’s a problem, so you go back to get a new copy. And from there, the book starts to spiral, as you attempt to read the book again and again, but something keeps going wrong. Chapters alternate between you (the reader) and the actual text of the book, but you never really get to actually read If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler for a variety of reasons. If this sort of challenge sounds fun to you, then you should definitely check this book out.
Cain’s Jawbone (E. Powys Mathers) This just might be the ultimate murder mystery puzzle! In 1934, Cain’s Jawbone was published as puzzle in a larger collection of brainteasers and in 2019, it was printed on its own as a separate book. But, what makes this puzzle so enduring, and confounding? The book is told completely out of order. Each of the pages are assembled haphazardly, so that the reader must determine their proper order in order to discover the solution to the mystery. First, you need to determine who are the six murder victims and their respective killers. If you think this sounds easy, then be prepared for a real stumper of a challenge. Not only are there millions of page order combinations, but less than ten people have officially come forward with the correct solution to the puzzle. If you think that you’re ready to join their ranks, check this book out and try to discover what really happened.
