Ten Favorite Flex Novels
(I’m borrowing my terminology from the Literary Stunt Index by Calvin Kasulke, who organizes the stunts he lists into four quadrants: what he calls Gimmicks, Pranks, Flexes, and Dares. A Flex, if I understand him correctly, is a book that successfully fulfills a bizarre or difficult conceit. I’ve arranged my ten favorite examples of the category alphabetically by author.)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
The Crab Nebula by Éric Chevillard
The Passion According to G. H. by Clarice Lispector
Shining at the Bottom of the Sea by Stephen Marche
Here by Richard McGuire
The City & the City by China Miéville
Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright by Steven Millhauser
Europeana: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century by Patrik Ouředník
Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables & Problems by Adam Ehrlich Sachs
The Neighborhood by Gonçalo M. Tavares
— September 16, 2021