Stranger Than Fiction

Harold Crick, an agent for the Internal Revenue Service, is a lonely man who lives his life by his wristwatch. He is assigned to audit an intentionally tax-delinquent baker, Ana Pascal, to whom he is attracted. On the same day, he begins hearing the voice of a woman omnisciently narrating his life as if he were a main character in a novel, but is unable to communicate with it. Harold's watch stops working and he resets it using the time given by a bystander; the voice narrates, "little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death". Worried by this prediction, Harold consults a psychiatrist who attributes the voice to schizophrenia, though they consider that, if there really is a narrator, he should visit an expert in literature. Crick visits Jules Hilbert, a literature professor, and relates his story. When Jules recognizes aspects of a literary work in Harold's story, he encourages Harold to identify the author, first by determining if the work is a comedy or tragedy.