Review: ‘A Novel Obsession’ is alluring, unsettling, meta
Associated Press“A Novel Obsession” by Caitlin Barasch Friendship, love, jealousy, obsession. Caitlin Barasch’s debut meta-novel, “A Novel Obsession,” is a chaotic exploration of these relationships and the way art blurs the line between them. Barasch has created a nesting doll of a novel: It’s a fictional story of a writer writing a fictional story — in which she sometimes has to write a fake version of her novel — written by a real fiction writer whose life bears many striking resemblances to the real-life novel. “A Novel Obsession” is unsettling, but surely that’s what a reader wants when they pick up a novel about a woman stalking her boyfriend’s ex. Like Naomi, I wondered, “Where can you possibly go from here to have a satisfying ending?” The novel’s vague hint at resolution answers, “You don’t.”
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