Beatrice and Virgil

In an early scene from Beatrice and Virgil, Yann Martel’s follow-up to mega-hit Life of Pi, a novelist, Henry, is stumped by a simple question: “What’s your book about?”

Henry’s book—or rather, his “flip book,” which is comprised of a novel and a nonfiction essay printed, in relation to each other, upside down and back-to-back—is…