What’s wrong with me? Please tell me, exactly what the hell is wrong with me? I’m always getting behind the wrong characters in books. Enthusiastically cheering on terrible behavior that I'd never cozy to in reality. Why do I love the bad guys so much? Why are their dubious motives and terrible goals so much more attractive and interesting to me than heroic ones?
Take Adam Lee, the rather cluelessly perverse narrator of Grant Jerkins’ A Very Simple Crime. I love the near-innocence of his voice – notice there is absolutely no rude language that he employs to describe really awful things – he’ so invested in his image as a victim and basically good guy that a blind spot the size of Montana must be and eagerly is employed to keep that cover. I laughed so hard at his observations and methods that I was disappointed every time the book switched point of view. I just kept thinking get me back to that guy.
And it’s a pattern. I love narrators who aren’t necessarily unreliable they’re more skewed. They aren’t lying to you, they’re lying to themselves. So a quick list of some of my favorite characters in this vein:
Frank Mansfield the interior monologue providing voice of Charles Willeford’s Cockfighter. He describes the beauty and elegance he perceives in the titular underground activity he loves and rails against those who would call him cruel while dispassionately describing the hell he puts a fighting cock through. A complicated character, certainly not without his honor, but jeez his hindsight ain’t exactly 20/20 either.
Wayne Ogden, the voice of the upcoming The Adjustment (and formerly The Walkaway) by Scott Phillips. He doesn’t see himself as a monster, but there’s only one motive behind everything he does – the ultimate self-serving character. And though he's awful, though he's cruel, though he's glibly toeing the psychotic line at The Adjustment's end he sees himself as just a swell guy. Gotta love him. (He’s made unforgettable appearances in some short stories too – The Best American Mystery Stories 2003, Plots with Guns)
Frankie Avicious from Nate Flexer’s The Disassembled Man. A blackout drinker, slaughterhouse worker and all-around schlub who goes on a killing spree so unclear in his motives that it’s almost comical. Almost. It’s a black-hearted book that blindsides you with humor so that you gag on your guffaws, hoping no one heard you. You’ll repeat to yourself – that was NOT funny, that was NOT funny, that was NOT funny – and perversely turn yourself into exactly the type of self-deluded character I’m celebrating here.
Nick Glass, the rookie prison guard of Allan Guthrie’s Slammer is so pathetic and so sympathetic that he can’t be trusted to tell his own story. When the final revelations of his tale are presented, you’ll not switch your allegiances, but wish you could go back to buying his point of view.
The narrator of Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club is perhaps the least in touch with himself of all these characters and his antics match up to his accounts about as well as... Not very well, but c'mon, I am Jack's enthralled subconscious. If he were well-adjusted and in tune with his own motives and actions, I'd have been denied one of the best first person books I've ever read.
Who’re your favorite deluded sickos?
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
