David Markson’s most recent book, The Last Novel, was named one of “The Best Novels You’ve Never Read” by New York magazine. Constructed out of hundreds of anecdotes about and quotes by artists, composers, writers and other people of fame or infamy, the novel essentially follows a single character, Novelist, who is alone and at work on his last novel.

Over the course of his four most recent books, Markson has been creating his own personal genre, defined as “Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage,” resulting in “A novel of intellectual reference and allusion, so to speak minus much of the novel.” Challenging traditional ideas of narrative, Markson nonetheless manages to create a moving portrait of Novelist, while also getting at something much larger—a history of the pursuit of art and the poverty, sexism, racism, alcohol, drug abuse and madness it often entails, a pursuit that is commonly portrayed as ending in an unfortunate or untimely death with little or no recognition.

The various anecdotes and quotes often serve as a reminder of our cultural tendency to forget the unpleasantness of people who have been framed through time as great artists and great thinkers, and to romanticize the genius alone at work. Ranging in tone from humorous to incredulous, Markson finds a way to make fun of his own critics and to become a critic himself, condemning, amongst others, George W. Bush, Christo, Bob Dylan and Jonathan Lethem’s praise of Bob Dylan.

Markson masterfully captures a mind at work, so much so that it is easy to forget this is a novel and not an autobiography or memoir, easy to slip Markson into Novelist’s place, which makes the novel seem all the more tragic as Novelist’s obsession with death rushes to a cataclysmic end. The overriding question seems to be what is a life worth and is it ever enough? What does the pursuit of art add up to? In the end Novelist can go no further, but I certainly hope this isn’t the same fate for Markson.