Nameless

I wrote a book that had a character a lot like me. He had many of my experiences. He lived in my neighbourhood. His family was a lot like mine. I knew people would assume he was me, that they’d see an anagram in any name I gave him. (“Hah! ‘Tom Ronson’ is really ‘Ron Thompson,’ right?!”) All the names I considered sounded false, so I avoided naming him at all. I completed the book without calling him anything. I found virtue and freedom in his anonymity. He was an everyman, a vessel, a doppelgänger who was and wasn’t me.

Inspired by Contemplating Fate & Destiny. Image by Dover Thrift Editions. The book I referenced is A Person of Letters. Let me tell you, it’s hard, and probably pretty dumb, for a first-time novelist to go novel length and not name his protagonist.