It's one thing when fictional characters lie to one another in a book. But what about when the book's narrator lies to the reader? What if the "mouthpiece" of the novel can't be trusted?
Of course, it doesn't have to be an outright lie. The narrator can be deluded or misinformed or too young to understand the grown-up implications of the events he's reporting.
Or he could just be an idiot.
In Ring Lardner's famous story "Haircut," the barber narrating the piece found himself nothing but entertained by the antics of the town's sadistic bully (recently killed in a hunting accident). As he cuts the hair of a customer new to the area, the clueless barber tells him how the dead man played hilarious pranks on a fellow—entirely missing the fact the bully's victim arranged the jerk's "accidental" death.
Here, the reader is in a superior position. The story of a bully bested is heightened when the narrator has no idea what really happened. It's an extra layer of fun for us.
In mystery fiction, however, the reader is usually one step behind events. A first-person narrator acting as detective (amateur or professional) uncovers the facts—or apparent facts—as they come to him. He cogitates in his own mind or discusses with other characters the potential meaning of each new bit of information. The rule is, he's not supposed to lie about what he's thinking.
Often, as the detective nears his conclusion, he stops revealing his thoughts to the reader and proceeds to act mysteriously to prepare a trap for an as yet unnamed bad guy.
Though he may go silent, he can't be accused of actually lying to the reader.
He is also free to omit information known to him at the end of the story, from which knowledgeable position he is presumed to be narrating. He need only mention stuff as it comes up during the investigation. That's a kind of lie, but generally tolerated by readers. To do otherwise is to abandon utterly the element of suspense.
On the other hand, an unreliable narrator flat-out lies. He deliberately misrepresents the events he encounters. His "revealed" thoughts are patently dishonest, designed to mislead the reader. He may even be guilty of the crime he's investigating. (And know that he is, unlike Oedipus.)
If a narrator is unreliable, but the author hides this information, the book is a cheat. Many readers objected to Agatha Christie's Murder of Roger Ackroyd on those grounds.
But if the author plants clues indicating the narrator is not on the up and up, an unreliable voice creates new levels of suspense. You come to realize the guy is lying, but you don't know when. He's hiding something, but his guilt is probably unrelated to the crime under investigation.
Now he's just like a lot of other characters in the standard mystery tale. Nearly everyone seems guilty...but of what? Nowadays, with readers hip to genre conventions, it's the folks with nothing to hide who need to be given the greatest scrutiny.
The main problem with unreliable narrators is that they may exasperate the audience. Once readers conclude they can't trust the guy, they may throw up their hands and—with the same motion—fling the book across the room.
It's a delicate operation. Does the reader feel he's in on the joke or out in the cold. It may come down to whether the book is entertaining despite the steep angle of the narrative slope.
If folks are having fun, they may play along. Readers of mysteries want to be given a puzzle to solve, working the evidence right alongside the detective. Once they realize they also have to decode the narrator-as-puzzle, you can only hope they're willing to take on this new task.
Generally, we're talking about first-person narrators. Readers are used to accepting the fact the "I-voice" is a character in the drama, not the author himself.
But what about third-person narrators? Typically the author "inhabits" the persona of the narrator, adjusting the grammar and word choice to match his or her education, social standing, and prejudices. Some narrations are so tilted you might suspect the author wrote in the first person, then went back and subbed out all the pronouns. (Elmore Leonard comes to mind here.)
If the language is sufficiently radical and charged with a character's personality, I see no reason why a third-person narrator can't also be unreliable. Though it's bound to be a bit more risky.
But any given character may be an obnoxious jerk, and readers have learned that third-person narrators are also not the author. (Well, some of them have learned it.)
The truth is, all narrators (and authors) are unreliable to some extent. They just don't know it.
Another distinction to make: When a character (of whatever POV) expresses an opinion or conclusion, the reader is free to "consider the source" and determine if the words can be trusted. But when a character reports an event ("Bob fired the gun"), the question of trust becomes acute and may be tricky to answer. I've read that some writers believe such a misstatement of "fact" can only be tolerated coming from a first-person narrator.
This position goes to the heart of the entire enterprise. When an author creates a fiction, what are his responsibilities? What rules can't be broken?
On one level, the whole act of fiction is a lie. Why is the author saying this stuff? By extension, why is his narrator saying these things? And who are they talking to?
In the alphabet series by Sue Grafton, a private eye named Kinsey Millhone is writing a report to her client. She faithfully performs this duty, though the client be dead by the time the story rolls to a conclusion. At the end of the early books, the words "respectfully submitted, Kinsey Millhone" would appear. (Even so, I don't believe the reports ever addressed the client directly.)
Here's a thought: If the client survives, have there been occasions when Millhone shaded the "truth" a bit to spare the client some emotional pain? If so, it could only be done by messing with the "official" text of the book itself. Millhone might admit doing this in a future book, maybe tell her new client: "It's true, I've fudged the truth in my reports to previous clients, but if you absolutely insist, I'll tell you everything I find out, warts and all."
I'm pretty sure that hasn't happened yet.
(Perhaps when the alphabet gives rise to the final volume, Grafton can have Millhone revisit an early case and set the record straight. Wouldn't be that hard—by the end, the action of the entire series will probably fit inside a three or four year time period, starting back in the mid-eighties.)
Indie-pubbing writers have an advantage in the world of unreliable narrators. Traditional publishers are worried books of this nature alienate enough readers to make them unprofitable. The success of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl may help to turn that perception around.
But if you're an indie-pubbed writer, what do you care what those guys think? Write the story you want using the tools you like best. A narrator working on a bias might be just the thing.
