Julian Barnes’s Talking It Over

Barnes, Julian.  Talking It Over.  New York and Toronto: Knopf, 1991
A book by Barnes much earlier than Arthur and George (2006), this one reveals then a longstanding interest in narrative alternations.  Talking It Over is about a love triangle–about two men of apparently opposite character who’ve been friends since school, and the woman one of [...]

Terry Pratchett’s Nation

Pratchett, Terry.  Nation.  London: Doubleday, 2008.
Nation is most interesting (in the context of my alternating narratives project) as a very messy version of the alternating narrative novel.  There are, yes, two central characters whose points of view alternate throughout the book.  They are, yes, representative of apparently opposite groups or cultures.  They do, yes, turn [...]

William Mayne’s Drift

Mayne, William.  Drift.  1985.  Bath: Lythway-Chivers Press, 1986.
From the perspective of twenty years later, this is a dangerously and foolishly brave book.  The last third of it is from the perspective of a character who is both female and aboriginal–in 1985, clearly, Mayne had no qualms whatsoever about either writing from the viewpoint of a [...]

Lauren Myracle’s ttyl

Myracle, Lauren.  ttyl. 2004.  New York:  Amulet, 2006.
This novel purports to be the transcripts of IM conversations among three 10th grade girls, who are best friends.  I say “purports” because, when I picked it up, I thought I’d be undergoing an experience in linguistic strangeness.  I’ve never IMed, and I understood it used a whole [...]

Amy Goldman Koss’s The Girls

Koss, Amy Goldman.  The Girls.  2002.  New York: Scholastic, 2002.
The five girls are a clique, built around the most popular and demanding girl, Candace.  The others always do as they believe she wants–but since she always cleverly manages to suggest what she wants rather than actually saying it, and because the girls are all so [...]