Why am I passionate about this?
I am fascinated by first-person points of view. In writing plays and screenplays, I couldn’t write the inner thoughts of my characters. Now, in novels and short stories, I do that almost exclusively, even if the stories contain multiple narrators. I love the Unreliable Narrator—whether it is someone too young to understand what they are witnessing, someone who is in denial, or mentally ill, or a non-human experiencing the world in an odd way—the discrepancy between their view and mine delights me. I love discovering all those inner thoughts, fears, anxieties, and desires. These first-person stories let me into another’s experience and allow me to empathize with a whole new perspective.
Susan's book list on first-person narrators navigating screwed-up lives
Why did Susan love this book?
I was stunned by this book. So much is unexpected as we follow Rosemary in trying to make sense of her very unusual upbringing. I was laughing and crying and furious following the heartbreaking story of the sisters.
This book explores things I wouldn’t have suspected I could find interesting— but Wow! I was wrong. The journey of this narrator is unforgettable.
7 authors picked We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
The New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.
Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she explains. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion...she was my twin, my funhouse…