My essay on experimental fiction appears in the latest Brooklyn Rail. It was first published in Something On Paper #5 and is based on a talk given at Naropa University on October 4th, 2016.
The traditional novel is like a car whose purpose is to deliver the reader from point A, through an emotional Freytag path, to point B. But the experimental writer here, too clever for her own good, has taken apart and reassembled the auto, repurposed its chassis, catalytic converter, spark plugs, etc., in order to make a sculpture, which she displays proudly and dedicates — so says the plinth on which it is placed — to revolution. Or maybe The Revolution. Erickson et al. complain upon seeing it: Phooie, now we’ll have to hitchhike.
Read the rest here.