I've tried to avoid spoilers in the comments below, but readers may find Chasing the Boogeyman better experienced with fewer preconceived expectations. Just sayin'.
In Chasing the Boogeyman (2021) author Richard Chizmar explores the fuzzy boundary between reality and fiction via his main character, author Richard Chizmar.
Boogeyman is a recent example of a narrative sleight of hand extending back at least as far as Dante's Divine Comedy—the writer inserting himself or herself into the story. For Dante, that meant a trip through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, accompanied by a different guide for each leg of the journey.
Pulp writer Edgar Rice Burroughs did something similar. He claimed in the opening pages of some John Carter of Mars and Pellucidar novels that the stories were manuscripts delivered into his hands by various means. While Burroughs wasn't a fully realized character in these stories in the same way Chizmar is in Chasing the Boogeyman, the earlier author used the trick in much the same way—to create an extra layer of reality around a fictional world.
In comic books, this technique has been used sporadically, as well. Writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby appeared at least twice in The Fantastic Four, first in issue 10 and then in the book's third annual. The standard conceit over the years is that the duo was merely chronicling the adventures of the real-life FF in comic-book format. Writer/artist John Byrne pulled a similar stunt several decades later, in issue 262, when The Watcher summons him to chronicle the trial of world-devouring Galactus.
Back in the world of prose literature, Stephen King famously inserted himself as a character in the Dark Tower series, which has a special bearing on Chizmar, who has collaborated with the horror writer on multiple occasions and wears his admiration for King proudly on his sleeve.
If the technique of authorial insertion has a specific name, I'm unaware of it. Surrogate author is close, but that involves a writer who creates an avatar (often with a different name) and then fictionalizes the stories involving that avatar. Metafiction most often means characters with a self-awareness of themselves as characters, something that doesn't really happen here.
What Chizmar does is more closely akin to Tim O'Brien's technique in The Things They Carry. There, O'Brien, a real-life Vietnam veteran, mixes fiction among autobiographical bits, to readers' delight and sometimes chagrin. (I can speak to the latter as a teacher whose students have sometimes been angry at how seamlessly O'Brien weaves truth and fiction. Despite the book's clear label as a novel, as soon as a first-person narrator named Tim O'Brien appears, they struggle to determine what is "real"—as I suspect O'Brien wants them to.)
Similarly, Chizmar's introduction drops readers directly into Boogeyman's plot, with no indication that he is already "in character." We are compelled to believe, even when a quick check of the book's spine still reveals "Fiction" and a perusal of the Internet reveals no information on a serial killer named the Boogeyman terrorizing folks in Maryland in the 1980s. A foreword by James Renner cleverly does the same. The web of credulity is spun early and often in Boogeyman.
Throughout the novel, Chizmar explores the realities of life in a small town. In this case, Edgewood, Maryland. As he writes in chapter one, "It's important that you carry with you a clear picture of the place—and the people who live there—as you read the story that follows, so you can understand exactly what it is we all lost."
It's a gambit that almost cost him a reader. I found the first chapter interminably long, even as I recognized what Chizmar hoped to accomplish by presenting this idyllic scene of Edgewood's daily life. I suspect the nostalgia hits many readers in a sweet spot by allowing them to recognize their own pasts or wish they had been fortunate enough to have similar formative experiences. For this reader, at least, less would have been more, or at least easier to digest in smaller portions throughout the remaining chapters.
That's a small criticism, however, because once the book moves past the opening chapter, it becomes riveting. As the titular Boogeyman finds and kills each new victim and the fictional Chizmar becomes more involved in the investigation, the pages turn themselves. Here, Chizmar weaves in the realities of life as a neophyte writer and publisher (of the well-respected Cemetery Dance magazine and publishing imprint) with the mounting dread felt by his family and other Edgewood residents. Adding to the verisimilitude are black-and-white photos of the major characters and sites in the novel, following most chapters.
The book reaches a satisfying conclusion, with a few surprises that don't contradict the sense of reality that has been carefully built throughout the narrative. In short, it works.
I've added Chizmar's other books to my to-read list. He's a good one.
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