It’s often said that ideas do not make a good novel (or a film), it’s good writing and believable characters that make a novel memorable. I guess I would have to agree with that, but I have to say that new and innovative ideas are often the things that make me actually go from “maybe” to “definitely” when I’m in the bookstore. I love the high-concept, and I would go further to say that literature doesn’t have enough big-idea novels. Because literature is so packed with “name” authors, and because readers tend to like (and buy) those familiar tropes, the novel landscape is not as full of fresh and exciting concepts as I would like it to be. There have been some doozies in the recent past, though, from Kevin Brockmeier’s Brief History of the Dead to Chris Adrian’s (absolutely awesome) Gob’s Grief to Keith Donohue’s The Stolen Child to Gillian Flynn’s blistering thriller Sharp Objects to the mystery novels of Peter Abrahams. But I often go into a bookstore looking for a quirky, bold, inventive (and minimalistic; why are novels so fat nowadays?) tale and come away disappointed.