Trends need not bear meaning, especially when they’re unintentional.

And yet.

Noting patterns can be revealing, even if what they reveal — if anything! — is up for debate.

The last FOUR National Book Awards winners for Fiction — Hell of a Book, Interior Chinatown, Trust Exercise, and The Friend — are all explicitly self-referential in terms of being commentaries on an art-form, exploring — amongst other themes — the bounds of how much art can capture lived and experienced truth. I mean, the main characters in each are all artists!

…yeah, I have nothing more conclusive to say on the topic, except to say it’s worth mulling!

And if I mull into anything interest along the way, I’ll be sure to share at that time.