Alphabetical Diaries

January 8, 2024
In this arresting literary experiment, Canadian novelist and playwright Heti (Pure Colour) takes sentences from 10 years of her personal journal entries and rearranges them in alphabetical order. “Don’t forget that although you aren’t telling a story, you must still do what stories do, which is lead readers through an experience,” Heti writes, providing a kind of cipher for the idiosyncratic format. What the book lacks in traditional narrative structure, Heti supplements with evocative snapshots of life, detailing broken love affairs, mediocre meals, and professional triumphs with the controlled chaos of a late-night thought spiral. She juxtaposes the mundane (“My book will be done this year!”) and the profound (“I wonder if I wanted to be a writer because nobody ever told me the truth”). The arcs of friendships and romantic relationships are sliced up and remixed, raising subtextual questions about the linearity of time and the nature of change. While the format might grate in lesser hands, and certain sections (the lengthy “I”s in particular) will test the endurance of even the most forgiving readers, Heti’s penchant for aphorism and sentence-level excellence keep things afloat (“Don’t want to be killed, but if I am, it’s no great tragedy, and there’s no dignity in worrying about it”). Those who stick with it will be dazzled. Agent: Jim Rutman, Sterling Lord Literary.