A genre shift can formally mirror characters’ physical border crossings.

Evidence

I wish to argue that Fesperman goes further by deploying a formal corollary for the frequent crossing and recrossing of borders undertaken by his characters as his text slowly morphs from a thriller into a modern-day Western. At the same time, Skelly is forced to confront and overcome borders in his own thinking, recognizing his lack of knowledge and therefore his dependency on Najeeb, with whom he has become increasingly close. — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 341

Categorization

• XREF: Directly useful for Hamid and Naqvi readings — both novels deploy genre/form shifts (e.g. The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s monologue-as-interrogation) that formally mirror identity crossings; Morey’s ‘formal corollary’ is a transferable tool.
• DEFINE: Formal corollary: the novel’s form (genre morphing thriller into Western) structurally parallels its content (characters crossing borders). A term for the reader’s critical vocabulary.