Against Frictionless Fiction

Two pandemic-era novels offer a clue: The Delivery by Peter Mendelsund and Fuccboi by Sean Thor Conroe. Incidentally, both novels feature bicycle couriers or “delivery boys” as protagonists, and both are written in a breezy shorthand, eschewing paragraphs in favor of line breaks, scenes in favor of vignettes, heft in favor of lightness. A most suggestive coincidence: Is this an intentional effect, form mirroring content? Is it a commentary on our friction-averse economy, with its predilection for efficiency over everything? What, in deconstructive terms, ought we to read between all these freestanding lines? What are the delivery boys made to carry, beyond pocket change, clamshelled Pad Thai, and outsourced impatience?