Not All Narrators Can Be Trusted
An “unreliable narrator” has been a convention since Arabian Nights, and maybe even longer than that. The term, which is attributed to Wayne C. Booth, who used it in 1961’s The Rhetoric of Fiction, refers to a noncredible narrator, although readers may not know the narrator is noncredible until the end of the story. Sometimes, though, the narrator is openly “unreliable” from the start. Ann Enright’s The Gathering, for instance, opens with the narrator saying she wants to recount an incident from her childhood but doesn’t know if she can because she isn’t certain it actually happened. From that one statement, we know we can’t trust the narrator, even though we don’t know why she’s unsure about the veracity of her memory. Is she warning us that her memory is spotty simply because of the passage of time, or is there a darker reason? Does she suffer from delusions? Is she trying to rewrite history for some reason? Such a device keeps readers guessing, unsure of what’s really going on. When the curtain is pulled back at last, the final revelation delivers a powerful punch.
Unreliable narrators allow authors great flexibility in determining how to relay information—what to withhold and when to reveal it. This capability comes with complex plotting challenges, though. First, while an unreliable narrator keeps readers wondering what is really going on, you must play fair. You can’t have someone suddenly shout, “But he’s a twin!” Nor can you have your protagonist wake from a dream or a druginduced hallucination. Second, you need
