The reporting behind those articles is the greatest strength of the book, but it reads more like a disjointed string of newspaper features than a single, novelistic narrative.

Drawing heavily on secondary sources, the British journalist Paul Johnson compresses 4,000 years of history into an absorbing, almost novelistic narrative.

Mr. Corcoran's novelistic narrative should frighten readers not because it shows what made Gordon Kahl different, but rather what made him so common.

Since no one can now hope to write the comprehensive, novelistic narrative, she allows herself sufficient genre flexibility to mingle tough theory with entertaining short stories.

As the film historian Roy M. Prendergast has pointed out, this is no accident: much movie music is deliberately operatic, suited for novelistic narratives of passion and conflict.

Surprisingly scant on authorial insight or any compelling personal thesis, her approach is closer to documentary than novelistic narrative: what you see, for the most part, is what you get.

It has gotten a following within the theater community both because it is one of the first in-depth studies of regional theater and because of its dramatic structure and novelistic narrative.

It might show how musical style turned from deductive reason and demonstration in the Classical period to reflective novelistic narrative in the Romantic period.

In relating this story, Ms. Leaming creates a novelistic narrative, animated by dramatic set pieces and vivid cameo portraits.

Though the volume attests to copious research, its novelistic narrative is flat, uninflected and unfocused.