Beginning with the ending

Over the past several months I have written a couple of times about novels with unique chapter headings. Back in April ("Clever foolishness," April 15, 2024) I wrote of A Fool's Alphabet by Sebastian Faulks, in which each chapter is headed by the city in which the action takes place, all in alphabetical order. Then in June ("Playing games," June 14, 2024) my subject was the Amor Towles novel A Gentleman in Moscow, in which chapter titles use only words beginning with the letter A.

In the meantime I was reminded of The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-Time by Mark Haddon, in which the chapters are numbered but only prime numbers are used. Thus there is no chapter 4 or chapter 6.

Michael Faber

Michael Faber has his own unique way with chapter headings in his novel The Book of Strange New Things. He makes the last words in each chapter the title of that chapter.

The first chapter, for example, is called "Forty Minutes Later He Was Up in the Sky," which is exactly how the chapter ends. Thus in each chapter `you know the ending before you read the beginning, not that it actually tells you much.