Murder in the first person

[shewhomust]

Another sign of autumn: it's Book Festival season - in Durham and elsewhere. We'll be going to a few of the Durham Book Festival events, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and the first of these was last night: two debut crime novelists at the city library. I hadn't entirely registered that both authors are published by Moth Publishing, a new venture, one of the partners in which is New Writing North, the agency who - among other things - programme the Book Festival. Which is maybe a little too cosy for comfort.

Nonetheless, a chance to taste something new. Of the two books, Helen Cadbury's To Catch a Rabbit intrigued me more. I liked her voice, and that her central character was a PCSO (Police Community Support Officer, and therefore not a 'real' police officer, a civilian in uniform: the police reps who come to our residents' meetings are PCSOs). I wasn't moved to buy a copy, though.

There wasn't much time for questions, but one of the few questioners asked: "You've both written your books in third person; did you consider using first person?" Neither had, though one (I don't now remember which) had written partly in first. The moderator commented that it would surely be difficult to write a murder mystery in first person, and could anyone think of a crime book in the first person - and immediately durham_rambler whispered to me: "Shelter" which is true, and a fine book and a good illustration of how it's done. I whispered back to him that surely one of the best known voices in crime fiction is that of Chandler's Philip Marlowe...

Which is why, when the session was breaking up, and the questioner was working his way round the audience, handing out cards about his book -

What? Yes, of course he'd written a book. I'd thought, as soon as he'd asked the question, that this was not just a writer's question but actually an aspiring writer's question, the result of a creative writing class approach to the nuts and bolts of writing. Possibly my prejudices are showing here. Anyway, he had written a book, and self published it, and was working his way round the audience, promoting it.

When he reached us, durham_rambler said: "Philip Marlowe."

"Pleased to meet you."

"No, I meant, the Philip Marlowe books are first person."

"Oh, I haven't read any of his..."

Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools!

Comments

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, of course. And I believe that almost all of S. J. Rozan's books are in the first person, to go more modern. Has this moderator read in the genre at all?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I suspect not. Her first question, after a short reading from each book, was "Tell us about where the ideas came from?" - which I maintain is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask about a specific book, but I still couldn't actually ask it with a straight face.

To go entirely modern, I've been reading Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series - all first person.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Dr Watson!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

This is true, but I think it's cheating!

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Likewise Archie Goodwin / Nero Wolfe.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

How about Hastings/Poirot?

If vschanoes hadn't got there first I'd have raised the matter of Roger Ackroyd where- of course- the first person narrative is crucial to the deception being worked on the reader.

The Moonstone is often named as the very first detective novel. That is told by a collection of first person narrators.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

I'd set on one side the Watson/Holmes, Goodwin/Wolfe, Hastings/Poirot narrative, in which the first person narrator describes the actions of the Great Detective. That first person voice is a sort of authorial stand-in, with a greater or lesser degree of solidity as a character in its own right. The actual narrative remains third person: the detective's thought processes are impenetrable.

The trick is to use first person to give the reader the sense of being inside the head of one of the characters, without giving away too much information. And, as you say, sometimes the author is simply pacing the release of information, sometimes actively deceiving the reader. (I'd say that the latter has by now been the case often enough that, particularly in short stories, I tend to regard first-person narrative as a sign of guilt!)

The Moonstone is an interesting example.

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

I tend to regard first-person narrative as a sign of guilt!
Must think of that before throwing one´s memoirs into the fire.

So,
you are ahem: acquainted, one might perhaps say, with Philip Marlowe? You could have added: "...and I´m his close friend" instead of letting him giving it all away at once but I guess, fame by proxy is not your cup of brown joy.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

But so few of Marlowe's friends make it to the end of the book alive!

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

True but you could ask him, how he got his hunches in person before you go! Also, I find finding him sitting right beside you too good not to pass on, if you will excuse the painful pun, so: may I link to this entry from, probably, the anti21stcentury community because it needs breathing some life into (not to say "re-animation")?

[valydiarosada.livejournal.com]

Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Don't know those. But that reminds me of Lawrence Block's Burglar (Bernie Rhodenbarr) books.

The more I think about it, the sillier the question seems. I wonder whether the moderator was in reading group mode, asking a question with so many answers just to make sure we were awake (most of the audience had read one or both books, so there may have been some reading group activity).