Number9dream

David Mitchell is a master of dreaming up non-linear, mind-bending, genre-blending stories that fuse fantasy and reality, so he has plenty of candidates for this list. I chose Number9Dream, a wonderful and genuinely bizarre coming-of-age novel that keeps the reader constantly asking if any of this is real. With gangster battles, kamikaze diaries, deadly floods and earthquakes, family tragedy, a stuttering “Goatwriter,” and (spoiler) a concluding chapter that is a blank page, this is, on the surface, the dazzling tale of a Japanese student searching for a father he’s never met. But from the opening chapter, where Eiji fantasizes… show more.

With similarities to Haruki Murakami’s style of writing, I love the structure of this novel. Told in the first-person narrative via 8 eclectic chapters, Mitchell weaves the captivating story of Eiji. Don’t try and preempt or anticipate what is going on, just go with the words written on the page and you will be swept up into Eiji’s surreal quest. The theme is a common one, boy searches for father, but it is beautifully written and executed.