prologue
Q&A
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
long period of time? Each narrative mode has its benefits and its
dangers. Third person, for example, runs the risk always of
being dreadfully etiolated and sounding like it’s been dipped
for a decade in an acid bath made up of the pulped voices of
1,001 old dead white males. Third person runs the risk always of being something that doesn’t dance. And first person clearly is always in danger of
becoming a narcissistic pinhole, an
all-or-nothing bargain. But again,
THIRD PERSON
I don’t think one writer’s preferRUNS THE RISK
ence says much about what is posALWAYS OF BEING
sible in the form. One thinks of
DREADFULLY
the grandeur of Ellison’s Invisible
ETIOLATED AND
Man, first person, and the mad intelligence of Nabokov’s Lolita, and
SOUNDING LIKE
also of the brainy,