The Collective Protagonist: Multiple Points of View and the Search for Truth in Familial Narratives

Abstract

How do you tell the story of a family? This is a question that is of key concern to me as both a writer and a reader. I am drawn, from both angles, to character as a key element of fiction. Yet when we speak of a family, we refer not just to the individuals that make up the family, but to the family unit itself, as a series of complex relationships that vary hugely over time and in reaction to events and moments that act as catalysts for change. To capture a family in writing, then, one must be able to express the simultaneity of togetherness and selfhood, of dependence and independence.