Preface: Novel Possibilities, or All Animals Aren’t Pigs?
Introduction: Once Upon a Time: A Short, Chaotic, and Entirely Idiosyncratic History of the Novel
1 Pickup Lines and Open(ing) Seductions, or Why Novels Have First Pages
2 You Can’t Breathe Where the Air Is Clear
4 Never Trust a Narrator with a Speaking Part
5 A Still, Small Voice (or a Great, Galumphing One)
6 Men (and Women) Made out of Words, or My Pip Ain’t Like Your Pip
7 When Very Bad People Happen to Good Novels
8 Wrinkles in Time, or Chapters Just Might Matter
9 Everywhere Is Just One Place
13 Drowning in the Stream of Consciousness
16 Source Codes and Recycle Bins
Interlude: Read with Your Ears
17 Improbabilities: Foundlings and Magi, Colonels and Boy Wizards
18 What’s the Big Idea—or Even the Small One?
21 History in the Novel/The Novel in History
Conclusion: The Never-Ending Journey