Found that book I was looking for! November 16, 2009

From Lanark: A Life In Four Books, by Alasdair Gray.

The novel is split into four parts, in the following order: part 3, part 1, part 2, part 4. The first two parts (numerically, that is) are a completely unrelated story to the last two, and the epilogue, which comes before the last four chapters, involves the author dropping in to explain this to the main character.

The scene (and, yes, it’s formatted exactly like this):

With a reckless gesture he handed Lanark a paper from the bed. It was covered with childish handwriting and many words were scored out or inserted with little arrows. Much of it seemed to be dialogue but Lanark’s eye was caught by a sentence in italics which said: Much of it seemed to be dialogue but Lanark’s eye was caught by a sentence in italics which said:
Lanark gave the paper back asking, “What’s that supposed to prove?”
“I am your author.”
Lanark stared at him. The author said, “Please don’t feel embarrassed. This isn’t an unprecedented situation. Vonnegut has it in Breakfast of Champions and Jehovah in the books of Job and Jonah.”