Novels Inspired by Opinion Polls? They're Here, and They're Weird

New York Times

2 days ago

Pick up a novel and suddenly you're at the whim of the author's imagination. Plot, characters, setting — you have no say in these matters. This is part of the appeal of fiction.
Now, perhaps for the first time since Choose Your Own Adventure, Tom Comitta tweaks the equation in 'People's Choice Literature,' coming out from Columbia University Press on June 3. The hefty 584-page volume contains two distinct works: 'The Most Wanted Novel' and 'The Most Unwanted Novel,' each incorporating results of an opinion poll on the literary preferences of 1,045 readers from across the United States.
Think eggs to order but fiction, served on the same plate as the most unappetizing breakfast imaginable.
'The Most Wanted Novel' is a thriller about a woman fighting a murderous tech leader. 'The Most Unwanted Novel' is an experimental epistolary romance set on Mars.
'The point is to create levity and humor and lightness,' Comitta said. 'The books take literature seriously, but also recognize that all human endeavor is absurd.'
Comitta, who uses they/them pronouns, has long explored the boundary between prose and performance art. In graduate school, they published a journal of intentionally terrible writing. (Its title rhymes with 'literature' and the first syllable is an unprintable synonym for excrement.)
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