The Fabulist

Abstract

With The Fabulist, I hope to provide many of the pleasures of popular narrative — addictive plot, compelling characters, immersive setting — while also conducting an earnest interrogation of the value of fantasy in all its forms, as well as the moral vacuity of the lonely fiefdom the protagonist constructs for himself out of pop cultural detritus and his various nostalgic and artistic whims. The book straddles two major settings and timelines: the suburban creep of Pooter Valentine's hometown, a world where strip malls and big box stores and fast food chains are being augmented in quiet magical realist fashion by something more sinister; and an ambiguously virtual game-world of Pooter's design, an RPG and DND-indebted land of endless quests and haunting vistas which may not have an exit. While the novel is grounded in the subjectivity of Pooter's anhedonia and egotism, it also aims to puncture his interiority by also becoming a story about his parents and the real people who begin to intrude (to Pooter's surprise and chagrin) upon the video-game world he is allegedly the master of. Ultimately, it intends to tell a story both of the everyday ways in which we escape (and in so doing, undermine) our reality, and of a grandly supernatural departure; of escapism as an act of abandonment, but also (at its best) a catalyst for new communities and connections. This novel draft aspires to all these goals, and may perhaps achieve some of them one day.