Beyond genre: experimental and alt-lit’s bold new directions

Genres are meant to be helpful. They signpost where to look on the shelves in bookshops and libraries, offering a comforting sense of what to expect. But what happens when a book won’t stay put? 

When its narrative is fragmented, its form elastic, and its voice deliberately hard to pin down?

Breaking the frame

Enter experimental literature, and its scrappy cousin, alt-lit. In 2025, we’re seeing a revival of storytelling that plays fast and loose with structure. These aren’t just postmodern antics; they speak to our fractured, hypertextual lives. Writers are using text messages, screenshots, footnotes, interactive web pages, and even phone formats to build fiction that mirrors how we actually absorb stories now.

Patricia Lockwood’s Women's and Booker Prize shortlisted No One Is Talking About This blends Twitter-speak with existential dread. Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos blurs memoir and fiction in a love story tangled with history. 

Then we have Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts. This book dissects online identity in prose that’s both biting and experimental. These books don’t behave—but they do resonate. They are all worth your time and deserve a place in your TBR pile.

Alt-lit grows up

Alt-lit, once dismissed as overly online or self-indulgent, has matured. It still wears its digital heart on its sleeve but now explores grief, displacement, loneliness—with sharp teeth. The wonderful Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport offers a breathless stream of consciousness that somehow captures both absurdity and tenderness. Olivia Laing’s Crudo collapses author and character into a timeline so current it nearly gasps.

These books may not be easy, but they are urgent. They demand attention, not just in reading but in rethinking what literature can do. They also offer something rare: intimacy. The messy, fragmented kind that feels eerily familiar to anyone navigating life in the attention economy.

Five boundary-pushing reads worth exploring:

• No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood – A genre-defying exploration of online life, absurdity, and sudden grief. A novel for anyone overwhelmed by digital reality.

• Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck – A complex and poetic dive into power and intimacy under East German socialism. Read it if you love love stories with sharp historical edges.

• Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler – If you've ever felt unsettled by Instagram performativity or online cynicism, Oyler's voice will hit uncomfortably close. Loved this book.

• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann – One long sentence, endless tangents, and a world of meaning. For readers who enjoy losing themselves in literary sprawl.

• Crudo by Olivia Laing – A sharp, semi-autobiographical snapshot of life and news overload in the Trump era. Short, strange, and strangely addictive.

Finally, let’s stop asking where these books fit. Instead, let’s ask what they make possible. Because sometimes, the mess is the message. And that is what books are able to do sometimes. It is how they tell stories that reflect our lives.