style="overflow: hidden; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;">There are conventions in novels, even literary ones. If a person is lost, the reader expects they will be found, or their fate at least revealed. If a character is mute, they will speak eventually, usually at a point of crisis, and their words will be profound. But what if an author is not interested in conventions?