Six Stories with First-Person Narrators

When a work of fiction is written in the first person, the story is filtered through the perspective of a single character speaking in the voice of “I,” describing events as they experience them. As the guiding consciousness of a narrative, the first-person voice is a remarkably flexible instrument: narrators range from the selfless to the self-absorbed, from the avoidant to the obsessive, from the wisecracking to the earnest. In these six selections, the way each story is told is crucial to understanding who the narrator is—and what the story is really about. As always, all are free to download.

“Alcatraz” by Danielle Evans Danielle Evans’ narrator is observant, warm, and determined to reunite her mother with her estranged family during a tour of Alcatraz. The story is as much about the narrator’s desire for family as it is about her mother’s. As she poignantly observes, “You take nothing for granted when the price of it is etched across the face of the person you love the most, when you are born into a series of debts and know you will never be up to the cost of the loan.”

“Hungry Ricky Daddy” by Jamil Jan Kochai In “Hungry Ricky Daddy,” the narrator tells the story of his friend Ricky Daddy and his love for activist Nabeela, and how falling in love spurs the friend to begin a hunger strike. With humor and charm, the narrator recounts Ricky Daddy’s misadventures in love, until the narrative begins to shift in ways that cast the story in a different light.

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“Chauffeur” by Catherine Niu In Catherine Niu’s “Chauffeur,” a driver reflects on his childhood, his luck at cards, and the quiet rules of his profession, taking pride in himself as a nondescript presence who tends to disappear in rooms. But a narrator who wants to disappear is still the narrator of his own story, and the story shows us that the chauffeur might yearn for something after all, to deal the cards instead of taking the hand he’s dealt.

“A Testimony” by Thomas Bernhard Famous for his cranky narrators and long sentences, Thomas Bernhard is a genius at writing obsessive narrators: misanthropes who will never let anything go. In this story, the narrator is supposed to testify that he saw a murderer on a train but instead spends his time railing against the landscape, the train, his fellow passengers, and ultimately, the problems of existence.

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“Metropolis” by Christine Schutt In this terse, elegant story, a mother is confronted by a teacher about her son’s anger problems at school. But the real anger belongs to the narrator herself, who berates herself for bringing a succession of troubled men into her son’s life. As she lies awake beside her son, listening to a dying lover in the next room, she wonders: “does my son hear, is he really sleeping, and how is it I have let this happen to us, opening the door to men who come in or who do not come in …”

“Pat’s, Geno’s” by Michael Deagler Michael Deagler’s newly sober narrator, Monk, rages against a newly gentrified Philadelphia and attempts to reconnect with an old flame. Monk offers stunning moments of self-insight, or, more often, self-laceration: “I was a man at odds with his surroundings. I was perhaps less bubbly than my usual self.” The pleasure of the story lies in the piercing clarity of Monk’s observations—about Philadelphia, about choosing the right cheesesteak, and about whether it’s possible to start over with a clean slate.

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