Review: Chee, How To Write an Autobiographical Novel (2018)

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays by Alexander Chee

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In a lot of ways, this collection of essays IS an autobiographical novel, told out of sequence and very subtly. You have to be watching the details to see what he's doing.

Chee is a literary writer, and it always amazes me to get a glimpse into that world, where novels are expected to take years to write (as opposed to commercial publishing, where publishers would really like authors to produce a book a year) and the thematics of the novel are almost more important than the story. Writing a novel is a deep dive into the writer's own psyche; that's what it's FOR. It's not how I think about writing a novel at all, but it's beautiful.



View all my reviews

comments