I’m playing “revision tag” with my editor right now, which
means it’s her turn to read/react to the latest draft of my current manuscript.
While she’s “It,” I take a complete break from the work-in-progress and INHALE
other books. And wow, I read some good ones this week!
They are very different but what I love about each is the
narrative device employed by the author. As writers we have to choose WHO tells
the story ... but in each of these books, there are multiple WHOs telling a version
of the story. The result is a three-dimensional kaleidoscope of narration: we
see events from the north-south-east-west-inside-and-out. If you’re trying to
figure out how to tell your story, take a look at these for some
inspiration/innovation!
Homegoing by YaaGyasi is a debut (!) which begins in the late 1700s on Africa’s “Gold Coast”
(Ghana) and tracks the divergent fates of two half sisters who never meet and
whose stories play out on two different continents through multiple
generations. Effia is married off to a British naval officer who deals in the
slave trade; Esi is captured, sold into slavery and shipped as “cargo” to
America. Eight generations later, we see how history, culture and ultimately, choice, bring these broken strands from
the same mother back to the same place.
Each chapter reads
like a short story, told from the POV of a next-gen narrator. A family tree
in the beginning of Homegoing is an
essential reference … there are a lot of characters … but the result is both
expansive and personal. Gyasi brings individuals and their wrenching stories to
life amidst the backdrop of sweeping events. She writes “small” in order to
breathe life into the “big.” This is not a historical novel, but rather a
family epic played out through history.
Salt to the Sea by
Ruta Sepetys on the other hand, is a historical novel. Based on the tragedy of
the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship filled
with refugees, sunk by a Soviet sub in the Baltic Sea in 1945, the story is brought to life via FOUR
narrators: an East Prussian teenager, a Lithuanian nurse, a Latvian girl
and a young German sailor.
I’ve attempted two alternating narrators before, but never
four! Sepetys pulls it off brilliantly, due, I think, to keeping each chapter
very short. She never bogs down and instead captures a particular incident and
unique, personal reaction from a character in every chapter.
I remember years ago visiting the Famine Museum in
Strokestown, Ireland, and our guide pointing out how their goal was to move
beyond the conventional history-telling of the “big house,” the rich and
powerful, and tell the stories of the ordinary people: the stories from the
potato ridges one can still see in the fields. When Sepetys was
researching Salt to the Sea, she
visited a museum where they displayed notes-in-bottles which had been hastily
written and tossed into the freezing ocean by passengers from the Wilhem Gustloff. Her goal with this
novel was to bring their stories and voices to life, and she achieves this,
resurrecting the individual stories which become lost in the great sweep of
big, historical events.
Basically: Sadie is missing. Her younger sister has been
brutally murdered, her killer never found, and months later Sadie has
disappeared as well. Like the reader, the DJ becomes increasingly drawn into
the “What really happened?” and tries desperately to catch up with the missing
Sadie before she becomes yet Another Dead Girl.
The tension Summers
creates by juxtaposing Sadie’s real-time narrative with the
fits-and-false-starts investigation by the DJ is terrific. I found myself
turning pages quickly and gasping in dismay at points: she totally hooked me. This
device also breathes life into secondary characters, as the DJ interviews the
various people who know or encountered Sadie along her journey. It’s a truly
inventive way to tell a story.
Okay, I’ve probably got another week before I have to dive
back into MY latest story, so next in the queue: Samantha Mabry! I’ve got A Fierce and Subtle Poison and All the Wind in the World on my night
table right now. Also fresh out this month: Nova Ren Suma's A Room Away From the Wolves. And in October, Kelly Jensen's (Don't) Call Me Crazy.
So many books, so little time ...
