The Great American Novel engages the techniques of what we would now call metafiction to parody worn out formulas and content and, ironically, to create a new type of novel that anticipates postmodern fiction. The heroine is a little Ford car, she was very passionate, a hot little baby. Someday you should read it. You'll have fun"From this attitude (as well as some of the work's content), we might gather that parody of American writing as usual was at least a part of Williams's aims for the work.