The biographical details printed on the back flap of his sprawling, ambitious new novel, Chronic City, merely hint at the scope and genre-bending nature of Jonathan Lethem‘s fiction. Since publishing Gun, With Occasional Music – a fusion of Philip K Dick, Raymond Chandler and Alice in Wonderland – in 1994, Lethem has flirted with science fiction, noir, fantasy, literary fiction, memoir, and Shakespearean pastiche to formulate a body of work that – on the face of it – is so eclectic in style and approach that each novel seemingly could be the work of a different writer.

The publication of his breakout novel – 1999’s Motherless Brooklyn – perfectly encapsulates his diverse and scattergun approach to fiction. An inventive, evocative crime drama centring on a language=obsessed Tourette’s sufferer, it managed to win the Macallan Gold Dagger but also a National Book Critics’ Circle award – an impressive and unusual achievement, especially considering the novel that preceded it: Girl in Landscape, an odd reworking of The Searchers (with apparently inadvertent nods to A Passage to India) set in space.

When asked at last week’s reading at the London Review Bookshop about the wildly different nature of his work, and whether this was a help or a hindrance to his work, Lethem was wholly positive about his polyglot sensibilities. There was no peril, he said, in moving from one genre, geographic location or style of writing; in fact there could be no other way to write his books. Alluding to his 2007 essay “The Ecstasy of Influence“, Lethem suggested that his novels were as much born out of his reading as of his experiences – something backed up by 1997’s As She Climbed Across the Table, which is in many ways a literary billet-doux to Don DeLillo. It wasn’t so much that Lethem wanted to be the man who never wrote the same book twice; it was just that he was incapable of doing so.

Creatively speaking, his argument was both logical and sure-footed: after all, no one would deny writers the absolute right to choose the subject and style of their work. But such diversity is not perhaps the best way to endear yourself to a readership, or to receive a consistent critical reception. A writer’s novel may be their own, but once published it becomes the preserve of the reader – and readers tend to want to trust that their authors will deliver the kind of book expected of them.

Toby Lichtig took John Irving to task earlier this week for his endless recycling of themes and preoccupations, but for many readers this is not necessarily such a bad thing. Yes it sometimes seems hackneyed, but the appeal of the familiar cannot be overlooked. If an author’s work is all over the place in terms of style, it’s often easy not to bother keeping up with them. With so many demands on readers’ time, and such a wealth of choice, an author who deviates wildly from their established milieu is simply adding layers of doubt for readers – which is what makes publishers nervous.

In an industry obsessed with creating brands – whether in genre or literary fiction – constantly confounding your publishers and readers can leave authors struggling to attract either. It’s debatable whether Lethem would have had the same kind of five-book support for his genre-bending fictions – even with all his awards – in the current climate, but I’m sure that there would be some grumbling from the sales department eager to sell in another fantasy-crime novel featuring a returning character.

The problem is, as Lethem highlighted, that one can only write the books you feel compelled to write. And while for the vast majority these are thematically, geographically, stylistically or generically linked to each other, for the few – the brilliant, yet perpetually overlooked Chris Paling and the incredible but under-championed Nicholson Baker for example – such similarities are much harder to tease out. Finding a readership is a long struggle, keeping one an even more titanic battle – even without adding your own obstacles along the way.

Jonathan Lethem may contend that there are no perils in an eclectic approach to fiction, but the mixed critical and commercial response to You Don’t Love Me Yet, the follow up to Fortress of Solitude, shows that readers don’t always thank you for pulling their comfort blanket away from them. Artists are duty bound to create the work that they imagine; unfortunately, however, readers are not compelled to read them.

What writers risk in not repeating themselves | Books | guardian.co.uk.

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