“Life is often a game of two halves,” thinks Vernon Subutex, the hapless character at the center of Virgine Despentes’s virtuosic Vernon Subutex 1.

Call the monster with bolts in his neck “Frankenstein” and someone will tut, “That’s the Creature; Frankenstein is the doctor.” It’s not out of laziness, however, that we misname the Creature “Frankenstein.” Through our conflation, we're questioning which character is more monstrous: the creation or the creator.