AustLit

'Mark Z Danielewski states: ‘Ruler-wielding didacts have instilled in [readers] the notion that a book must start here, move along like this, and finish over there. But books don’t have to be so limited. They can intensify informational content and experience. Multiple stories can lie side by side on the page … pages can be tilted, turned upside down, even read backwards… But here’s the joke. Books have had this capacity all along… Books are remarkable constructions with enormous possibilities… But somehow the analogue powers of these wonderful bundles of paper have been forgotten’ (Danielewski 2002). Adopting Danielewski’s position, this paper is a fictocritical exploration of the practices involved in authoring/illustrating ‘Truth Is’, a composite illustrated novel about the multiple narratives/truths splintering from one act of heinous violence. Part murder-mystery, part pseudo-documentary, part graphic novel, ‘Truth Is’ seeks to re-imagine the textual spaces of the ‘book as object’ as a method of enriching the narrative’s thematic explorations. This paper explores the illustrated novels of Jonathan Safran Foer and others researched while creating the novel, and enmeshes this with an exploration of the author/illustrator’s intentions and trepidations in encountering the potential of the book as object.' (Publication abstract)