Multiple Narratives, Versions and Truth in the Contemporary Novel

Book excerpt: Multiple Narratives, Versions and Truth in the Contemporary Novel considers the shifting perception of truth in fiction. Nicholas Frangipane examines the narrative technique of telling multiple versions of the same sets of events, presenting both true and false versions of the events within a fictional work. This book looks closely at these “Reflexive Double Narratives” in order to understand the way many contemporary writers have attempted to work past postmodernism without forgetting its lessons. Frangipane explores how writers like Ian McEwan, Yann Martel and Alice Munro have departed from the radical experimentation of their predecessors and instead make sincere attempts to find ways that fictional writing can reveal enduring truths, and in so doing, redefine the meaning of “truth” itself and signal the emergence of post-postmodernism.