On my trip to the Grand Canyon I read Cory Doctorow’s second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe.  The book begins in media res with the main character informing us that he’s in an insane asylum and that he is deciding whether to give himself a lobotomy with a pencil.  We also quickly learn he believes himself to be set up.  I always find it to provide a very interesting tension when experiencing works of art that begin in the middle.  Most of the time, as happens with Eastern Standard Tribe, the current story is interrupted to tell how we got here.  Of course, this leaves the reader (or watcher in the case of a movie) playing the mental game of trying to figure out how we end up back at the beginning.  You know the main character can’t die (unless it’s a work in which resurrection is allowed - plus some other ways that writers can be tricky and mean) and you know that no matter where he ends up going, he’ll end up in the location at the beginning.  Regular books, as you know, leave you in the dark about where you’re headed.  Doctorow chooses to tell the story in the same manner of Momento, switching between the past and the present, rather than focusing on the past until we’re caught up.  This technique made it fun because even as you see how he ends up imprisoned, you are seeing his plans for getting out.