The Shards: A Novel

“Many years ago I realized that a book, a novel, is a dream that asks itself to be written in the same way we fall in love with someone: the dream becomes impossible to resist, there’s nothing you can do about it, you finally give in and succumb even if your instincts tell you to run the other way.”

Bret establishes the metafictional aspect of the novel in the first sentences by referring to his story as a “novel.” The repetition of “dream” reinforces the unreality. As Bret finds his novel “impossible to resist” and includes numerous details that correspond to Ellis’s real life, the novel gains a power that makes it seem real.

“Writing this now, I can’t believe that I was left to my own devices for twenty minutes, just idly sitting there, thinking about things, about Thom and about Susan, waiting without a phone to look at, waiting without something to distract me.”

Bret often uses his story to make comments about contemporary culture. One luxury of living in 1981 is having the space to be “idle” or “think.” Bret argues that the omnipresence of digital entertainment in contemporary society make people less introspective.

“Whoever played this character was extremely elusive—a shape-shifter—though he was responsible for twenty break-ins that summer alone.”

In a metafictional gesture, as Bret refers to the Trawler as a character. The Trawler is literally a character in a book, but he’s also someone who the other characters create—the LAPD invent his crude nickname. The characterization—“elusive” and “shape-shifter”—suggest Bret might be the Trawler as Bret isn’t transparent or easily definable.