Why Mali Cornish loves unreliable narrators

Read a piece from The Missing Mother author Mali Cornish.

I remember attending an author talk some years ago and hearing them wax lyrical on how much they dislike the trope of the unreliable narrator.

The argument, as far as I can recall, went along the lines of  'all narrators are inherently unreliable.' This is because whenever we hear a story from another person’s point of view, it is informed by their life experiences, their biases, their perspective, none of which might  accurately reflect reality.  Well, sure, I thought, but when we’re talking about unreliable narrators, that’s not really what we are talking about.

The unreliable narrator, in the psychological thriller sense of the term, is the slippery creature whose perspective we are immersed in, who we think is a little fishy, but who is so likeable, or charming or vulnerable that we can’t help rooting for them. Think Nick and Amy Dunne in Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, the unnamed main character of Chuck Burkowski’s Fight Club, Theo Faber in The Silent Patient or even Theo Decker in Donna Tart’s The Goldfinch. These characters, all brilliantly realised and deeply troubled, are the gold standard of the genre. Sometimes they lie by omission, sometimes they lie straight up, sometimes they tell you directly that they are not to be taken at their word. They are my favourite characters to read, and, as it turns out, to write as well.

So what makes this style of character so compelling? I like to think of the unreliable narrator as the literary equivalent of the slightly toxic friend. They always have a crazy story, they invariably let you down in some way, but they are so much fun and get themselves into such ridiculous situations that extrication is impossible.

Creating a character like this is a balancing act. Make the lies too obvious and the suspense deflates, make them too honest or virtuous and the revelation that some part of their story was wildly inaccurate feels unearned and leaves a sour taste in the reader's mouth. There also needs to be actual justification for their dishonesty – are they afraid, are they unwell, are they traumatised, or are they just bad? Again, this comes back to the need to work for and justify their unreliability – there is no point having a character you can’t trust just for the sake of it.  They also need to be capable of being radically honest in some ways while still hiding huge parts of themselves. That is another thing that can make a person like that so enthralling  in real life – there is the sense that you understand some part of their being in an intimate and specific way when what really makes them tick is another hundred layers down.

Elspeth Frank is our narrator in my new book, The Missing Mother.  When I was writing her I wanted to create a character whose self awareness and powers of persuasion were compelling enough to make the reader care about her, even as it becomes clearer with each page that she is not necessarily truthful.  Elspeth is her own worst enemy -  her life is a mess and she doesn’t seem that motivated to make it better; but she can also be so funny, so direct and so cutting in her asides that it is impossible to hold her massive character flaws against her.  Again, writing her was a tightrope performance.  I didn’t want to put the reader off but I wanted them to understand early that she was not perfect. I hope that I have achieved that. She was incredibly fun to write and I hope you enjoy reading her.

The Missing Mother by Mali Cornish is available now from your bookstore of choice.

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The Missing Mother

by Mali Cornish

A razor-sharp psychological suspense thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn about the family secrets that bind us - and break us.

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