Walter Kirn, a well-known American book critic and novelist (his credits include Thumbsucker, Up in the Air, and Mission to America) has signed on to write a serialized online novel for Slate, to appear in twice-weekly installments over the next three months or so. According to an advance notice from a Slate editor, Meghan O’Rourke, The Unbinding will be “a dark comedy set in the near future.”

The online-serial concept isn’t exactly new, and has a spotty record. Stephen King tried it with The Plant and it stalled, and Dave Eggers tried a political-satire novel for Salon a couple years ago, which also stalled. More successfully, Paul Ford’s fictional account of a budding young Brooklyn rock star, Gary Benchley, began life as a serial on the Morning News site (where its chapters were presented as real letters) before being published last fall as the novel Gary Benchley, Rock Star.

In any case, Slate is arguing that its own online novel is, of course, different. Kirn’s work will take the form of “a compilation of ‘found documents’—online diary entries, e-mails, surveillance reports, etc. It will make use of the Internet’s unique capacity to respond to events as they happen, linking to documents and other Web sites. In other words, The Unbinding is conceived for the Web, rather than adapted to it.” But we’ll have to wait until Monday, March 13 to get a look at the first chapter.

Related links:
Click here for the Slate announcement of The Unbinding