The use of unreliable narrators is a storytelling technique found more often in other genres than in romance. The idea is that the person telling the story doesn’t tell the reader everything – the protagonist either lies outright or lies by omission. This is a breach of the fundamental and implied trust between reader and protagonist, and so it’s a useful technique.
Probably the most famous example of this is Agatha Christie’s mystery, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD, in which (SPOILER ALERT!) the protagonist is the murderer. The story is told in first person, and the protagonist is very charming – his con job of the reader, for lack of a better term, is a perfect illustration of character. Of course, there are hints and clues along the way, little pieces that don’t add up, so the ending has that perfect OH! moment – the kind that is a surprise, yet seems absolutely obvious once you know the solution. The story is that Agatha Christie was kicked out of the CrimeWriters Club when this book was published – her use of the unreliable narrator was considered that provocative.
I like unreliable narrators myself. I like characters who have secrets and choose not to reveal them – I’ve written a few of those characters over the years. It’s a technique that makes for a good surprise ending.
Often I’ve written those stories in first person POV. That’s a deliberate choice because first person POV heightens the sense of intimacy between the reader and the protagonist. It seems less likely that a protagonist will mislead you when you feel as if you’re sharing that character’s every thought. Of course, as readers, we forget that we’re not really sharing the protagonist’s thoughts – the protagonist is telling us what he or she wants to know. We’ve all had people lie to us, even right to our faces, but we forget that when we read. That’s why the technique works so well. We come to a book prepared to trust the narrator.
So here’s the interesting thing – I’ve recently finished a book with an unreliable narrator, and although the pieces hang together perfectly at the end, I found the technique a bit irritating in this particular case. There’s a lot that I like about this book, but not this hook, not this time. It seems that I’m okay with protagonists who deliberately lie to me, but I’m not okay with protagonists who are delusional and don’t even know what the truth is.
Just writing that sentence makes me laugh. These are fictional characters, after all.
What about you? Do you like books with unreliable narrators? Or do you prefer protagonists who are – forgive me for this one – an open book?
Deborah Cooke: Author 
2 responses to “Unreliable Narrators”
I liked how Christie handled it.
The little hints that the protagonist was misleading the reader were enough to set up the ‘aha’ moment, and by the end of the tale, I feel the reader was an antagonist in relationship to the protagonist.
If the first person pov protagonist cannot themselves discern between truth and lies, it kind of muddies the water and leaves me, as a reader, feeling jerked around a bit by the author.
The delusion (of the character) itself makes for an unsatisfying reveal at the end, for me.
It’s falls under same reason I hated “The Reincarnationist’ by M. J. Rose. I felt she failed to fulfill her contract with me, leaving too many questions unanswered (including whether or not the main character survived).
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Interesting comments, Diana. I’ll have to take a miss on that book!
The one I was reading was THE LACE READER. Lovely in many ways, and a self-confessed unreliable narrator, but I was a smidge irked at the end.
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