Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative

Catapult is thrilled to welcome back the writer Jane Alison to our list. The author of the acclaimed Nine Island returns with a smart, intimate craft guide for storytellers of all kinds Not only a provocative, heartfelt manifesto for writers, there's much in Meander, Spiral, Explode for lifelong readers. Alison captures exactly why serious readers are drawn to literature and are so moved by the craft of writing Alison is a brilliant teacher, and we're immediately swept up in her lessons and insights into how patterns in geometry and nature can inform the very best ways of storytelling Like Peter Orner's Am I Alone Here? or Alexander Chee's How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alison uses very personal anecdotes about what moves her as a reader to elucidate how to be a better writer. She also ensures your To Be Read pile will be towering with new books to read after encountering her influences and favorites Alison is herself a faculty member of the prestigious UVA MFA in Creative Writing program (one of the top creative writing programs in the country), and her book on writing will be sought after and adopted by graduate and undergraduate creative writing, English, and literary theory programs. As such, we will undertake a robust academic marketing and outreach campaign for this book, in partnership with Ingram and RMS For fans of Graywolf's The Art of series An absolutely gorgeous, thrilling book on craft. Alison generously sees some of the forms for fiction that exist outside of the traditional conflict/build/resolution arc laid out by Aristotle. These include the replication of natural phenomena like waves, cells, fractals, pattern, used by authors to structure and design a cohesive narrative, often to liberating effect. Alison provides examples and analysis of each of these alternative forms that illuminates the extent of not only their effectiveness at revealing/reflecting deeper, bigger truths than could be told through a more traditional story form, but also the great power such choices can hold. I highly recommend this read to anyone who enjoys engaging with story structure and the myriad ways it can function, readers and writers alike. --Molly Moore, BookPeople (Austin, TX) Jane Alison's latest is a book about the craft of writing, but it's as hard to put down as the novels and stories it lovingly and clearly anatomizes. For aspiring writers, there's enough wisdom in here for a semester's worth of graduate study. Common and uncommon readers alike will also develop stronger reading muscles and build better vocabularies for describing how certain books knock us sideways. At the same time that it shows certain literary magicians' tricks, it celebrates the mysterious power and joys of writing. --John Francisconi, Bank Square Books (Mystic, CT) I'm obsessed with Alison's assertion that the traditional Aristotelian story arc is intensely 'masculo-sexual.' The way she steals narrative away from what's normative is nothing if not strikingly no-nonsense and bold--and you will love her for it. In the tradition of Vandana Shiva and ecofeminism, Alison takes stories and redistributes the influence of nature and its femininity over them so that it far outweighs classical understanding. She will make you read differently, and she will make you sigh with relief when you sit down to write. She takes away the rules in a way that doesn't take away any stability . . . You are forever standing on the solidity of the natural world's patterns as you craft. --Afton Montgomery, Tattered Cover Book Store (Denver, CO)

About the Author :
JANE ALISON is the author of a memoir, The Sisters Antipodes, and four novels--The Love-Artist, The Marriage of the Sea, Natives and Exotics, and Nine Island--and is also the translator of Ovid's stories of sexual transformation, Change Me. She is professor of creative writing at the University of Virginia and lives in Charlottesville. Find out more at www.janealisonauthor.com.

Review :
Praise for Meander, Spiral, Explode Chicago Review of Books, One of the Best Books of the Year So Far Publishers Weekly, One of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year A Big Other Most Anticipated Small Press Book of the Year Alison's close readings can be exhilarating. One of her more seductive ideas is the notion of possible 'correlations between kinds of stories and certain patterns, ' as when reflective first-person novels adopt the spiral . . . Alison's prose is potent and lush, her enthusiasm infectious . . . The fecundity of Alison's writing is of a piece with her larger mission: to turn narrative theory into a supersaturated mindfuck of hedonistic extravaganza. It is a special kind of literary criticism. --Katy Waldman, The New Yorker A playful, insightful taxonomy of narratives that while seeming to defy categorization, in fact take their innovative structures from patterns found in nature: fractals, cells, wavelets, and more . . . A thought-provoking manual for writers, critics, and casual readers alike. --The Atlantic, One of the Best Books of the Year [A] boundlessly inventive look at narrative form . . . It would do a disservice to this work to pigeonhole it as 'literary criticism'; the study is filled with clarity and wit, underlain with formidable erudition. --Publishers Weekly (starred review) You don't have to be a professional writer to enjoy novelist Jane Alison's brilliant new craft guide Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative, published by Catapult Press. Anyone who reads stands to appreciate her argument that the primary way most of us are taught that fiction ought to be structured--Freytag's famous triangle--is neither the best nor the only method. --Kathleen Rooney, Chicago Tribune, What to Read This Summer Transformative . . . This book will introduce you to works you've never heard of, and also change your interpretation of better-known stories; Alison's reading of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, for instance, pushes the novel's symmetrical structure beyond gimmick and into something sublime. The questions many of these texts ask, Alison points out, are not 'what happens next?' but 'why did this happen?' and 'what grows in my mind as I read?' --Maddie Oatman, Mother Jones What if everything you know, everything you've been taught, about writing is wrong? Or, if not wrong, precisely, at least restrictive, oriented in only one direction, without much room to get creative and go outside the bounds of what had been done before? This is what Jane Alison explores in her fascinating new book, which looks at the ways in which prescriptive writing has led to sameness and predictability. Alison encourages an exploration of techniques and styles, offering examples of experimental writing from masters like W.G. Sebald, Clarice Lispector, and Jamaica Kinkaid, as proof of the many ways that writing can shine when not on a typical linear path, when it is allowed instead to spiral and spring forward and back, fold in on itself or unravel in infinite directions, all of which feel new and exciting. --Kristin Iversen, NYLON, 1 of 15 Great Books to Read This Month "Alison's book is like a cold shower to ward off the standard narrative arc and rewire our mental circuitry to see the patterns of nature in the structure of novels . . . This is a playful and exciting book that opens up all sorts of new possibilities for narrative arcs." --Sarah Boon, Chicago Review of Books A modern writing manifesto that encourages creatives to leave outdated modes of storytelling behind and embrace the dramatic arcs we see in life and nature. --Kerri Jarema, Bustle, 1 of 29 New Memoirs Out in Spring How lovely to discover a book on the craft of writing that is also fun to read. Australian author Jane Alison has written a great one in which she urges us to abandon--or at least improve upon--the traditional story arc that has dominated fiction since the age of Aristotle. Alison asserts that the best stories follow patterns in nature, and by defining these new styles she offers writers the freedom to explore but with enough guidance to thrive. --Maris Kreizman, Vulture, A Best New Paperback Book of the Month Jane Alison's book on craft calls into question the dramatic arc many writers have been taught to follow in their work . . . Alison presents a 'museum of specimens' including writing by Anne Carson, Raymond Carver, Gabriel García Márquez, Jamaica Kincaid, Clarice Lispector, and Mary Robison, to illustrate some of the possibilities for nonlinear storytelling--and she invites her readers to follow these examples to 'keep making our novels novel.' --Poets & Writers, One of the Best Book for Writers "Meander, Spiral, Explode is the best craft book I've read in years; it questions the primacy of the arc-shaped narrative and presents a series of alternative ones, using for examples--and this is no accident--some of the best books in modern literature . . . It'll blow your mind." --Emily Temple, Literary Hub The best work of literary criticism I've read so far this year . . . Explores patterning and design in narrative, questioning the supposed prominence of the 'narrative arc.' What about other shapes, Alison asks, leading us through the work of the writers who use them--Sebald, Baker, Carson, Duras, Gabriel García Márquez, Kincaid, Lispector, Minot, Mitchell, etc. etc. etc. I think they would all be pleased by this book. --Emily Temple, Literary Hub "In Meander, Spiral, Explode, Jane Alison casts aside the traditional structure of the story and considers the shape of other arcs . . . I'm excited to see how she explores beloved texts. --Katie Yee, Literary Hub, 1 of 19 Books to Read This Month "Who knew literary criticism could be so much fun? That's the impression that lingers after finishing novelist, memoirist and University of Virginia creative writing professor Jane Alison's Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative . . . Alison's gift for close reading brings to mind fellow novelist and critic Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer, and her enthusiasm for this literary archeology project is infectious . . . It's a book that will have open-minded readers viewing the next work of serious fiction they encounter with a more discerning eye, ear and mind." --Harvey Freedenberg, Shelf Awareness A meditation on alternative narrative forms . . . I'm thinking of using [Meander, Spiral, Explode] in my creative nonfiction class next fall. It's a neat and very easily accessible book that could be used by writers as a craft book, but also you could read it as a reader to figure out why is it that certain stories feel really refreshing or new . . . I loved it. --Elizabeth Rush, Longreads, What Are You Reading? Novelist Alison's stylistic primer promises to stand apart, among the many writing guides publishing next year, in its tightly focused attention to the nuts and bolts of technique. --Publishers Weekly, 1 of the Top 10 Books for Spring, Essays & Literary Criticism Venturing into the world of narrative theory, [Alison] takes a personal and idiosyncratic approach . . . For readers interested in literary theory, Alison does a great job making it palatable. --Kirkus Reviews In this wholly original analysis of style, [Jane Alison] explores the forms and shapes that narrative can take, pushing the bounds of storytelling beyond the infamous pyramid of climax . . . Her observations of the sensory aspects of literature are indulgent and delectable, and sure to elevate the experience of readers and writers alike. --Booklist In brief, compelling meditations on contemporary fiction, [Alison] teases out figures we might expect to spy from a plane window or in the heart of a tree . . . Alison recognizes the cheekiness of her project, knows her readings of form may not convince every reader. Her aim is not to classify tales, to pin them like butterflies on a styrofoam board . . . The point is not ornamentation, though Alison can write a sentence lush enough to drown in, but tempting fiction writers to render life more closely. --Irina Dumitrescu, The Times Literary Supplement Alison's exuberance with the subject matter is contagious, her approach both personal and deeply researched . . . Meander, Spiral, Explode leaves us as writers and readers in an exciting place, alert for patterns in nature we might see replicated in the fiction we read, or that might serve to support the next story we draft. --Katelyn Keating, CRAFT Doctors don't imitate Galen. Why should writers follow Aristotle? Jane Alison in her fresh, original book about narrative is our new Aristotle. --Edmund White, author of The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading