4 Characters Who Keep Their Secrets

I love first-person narrators. They have a special power to draw me in, making me feel invested as they share their deepest thoughts and emotions. Then there are the unreliable narrators, folks who, despite all this lovely sharing, can’t be trusted. Either they’re crazy, or forgetful, or they have an agenda—or sometimes all three. The characters in the following books go to great lengths to hold onto their secrets. See who you believe:
The Resurrectionists, by Michael Collins
I’m always amazed more people don’t know and rave about this book, because it has everything needed for first-rate noir: a corpse, a hero with amnesia, and a road trip one step ahead of the law. When Frank Cassidy was a child his parents died in a mysterious fire. Now the uncle who raised him is also dead, and, as Frank says, “It’s not exactly easy to go to a funeral halfway across the country when you’re up to your ass in debt, when you don’t have the money for an airline ticket.” So Frank loads his wife, cat, and two children into a stolen car and sets out on an epic drive from New Jersey to Michigan. He’s a great character—angry and foul-mouthed, yet visionary as a mystic—and his descriptions of America’s “intergalactic” highways and rest stops are eerily beautiful, even while the reader knows that hey, this trip? It can’t possibly end well.
We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart
A novel made for book clubs, We Were Liars tackles big questions of status and love, and how even the most privileged families can implode. Cadence’s family is so old-money wealthy they own their own island, and so stiff-upper-lip that when her father walks out on them, her mother basically tells her to “snap out of it.” Then, the summer she’s fifteen, a terrible accident leaves Cadence permanently damaged. But what exactly happened? Was it an accident? She herself remembers nothing of that night, and her family is too locked in denial (and alcoholism) to be trusted. While the can’t-see-it-coming plot twists make this one a surefire thriller, it’s Cadence’s appealing voice that carries it.
A Kind of Intimacy, by Jenn Ashworth
“Some people are naturally honest and can’t stretch the facts to save their life. I realized, too late, that I am one of them.” Given such an introduction, can any reader doubt they’re about to be lied to? Annie, the relentlessly cheerful narrator of A Kind of Intimacy, is my favorite kind of liar, deceiving not just us but herself. Annie’s whoppers put a positive spin on her life, and she believes them because she has to: obese and on the run from a bad marriage, some days she struggles just to get out of bed. Luckily her new neighbors, including sexy Neil, are inclined to think the best of her, even when she starts spying in their windows…and mail goes missing…and rumors surface about her past life. The author makes Annie so sympathetic that, despite everything I knew or suspected, I still wanted her to win Neil’s love. That’s an accomplishment!
Hyde, by Daniel Levine
If you remember Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from high school English, you know the case was pretty cut and dried. Anything bad, it was Hyde’s fault. Or was it? Locked in a room with only days left before the world hunts him down, “granted this final spell of solitude, alone in the body,” Hyde wants to set the story straight. Like all villains, he’s done some terrible things – there are those murdered girls to explain, after all—and yet he’s a victim, too. Seen from his viewpoint, Dr. Jekyll was arrogant and rash, thoughtlessly tinkering with strange drugs. As Hyde points out, he never asked to be created, so who’s responsible for the damage done, really? A great read, especially the descriptions of what it’s like to be a consciousness sharing someone else’s head (shiver).
Who are your favorite fictional secret-keepers?