Being Written ought to be better than it is.

The idea is clever: someone is trying to go about his life aware that he’s being written as a character in a book. Some of the writing is clever, as when one character thinks “everyone at the table appears to Monty as if they’ve dressed for different occasions.” I’ve been to those parties. But other times the prosaic invades, as when we find, on the same page, that “pinstripes complement Natalie’s pale blue silk evening dress.” Is such an adjective train really necessary?

The novel bogs down. Quickly. The second person isn’t used as skillfully as it is in, say, Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City. Its self-consciousness becomes irritating, as when a chapter begins, “This doesn’t seem like the kind of book you’d want to read. There’s so much talk. You prefer books like the new Richard Corrone novel that you’ve set across the table from you as an incentive.” The truth is that Being Written does seem like the sort of book I’d want to read. But there’s too much blather about what it is to be a writer and tell story, with too little actual story.

Chapters alternate between different characters’ points of view and the second person “you” chapters, as if the writer is writing you. The former tend to be more successful but more boring and the latter more interesting but frustrating. He’s not the first writer with similar problems. About The Trick of It, Kate of Kate’s Book Blog wrote:

I found the premise of the novel irresistible: a young scholar meets and marries the novelist whose work is the primary focus of his academic career. This seemed to me a very clever way to explore the vexing interrelationship between fiction, biography, and literary criticism. And it was. But I’m not sure that the book ever transcended its premise to become something more than a clever idea.

That’s how I feel about Being Written, except I didn’t love the premise, which reminded me too much of 60s experimentation gone wrong, right down to the cover, which pictures a guy bent double with a pencil on his back. Yeah, I get the idea: we’re all in the process of being written by the stories of our lives even if we don’t necessarily hear the voice that the narrator does, but this doesn’t feel original even if I can’t immediately cite an obvious predecessor. Still, I did like it enough that I’ll keep an eye out for Conescu’s next novel, since this one shows promise, while many novels fail even that test.

Note: this novel was provided by its publisher.