All Those Vanished Engines by Paul Park

Author:Paul Park
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Macmillan-Tor/Forge

3. THE GHOST IN THE AIRSTREAM

Before I left Baltimore, I’d had a conversation with Traci Knox about the end of her book. She had taken to heart something I had said, something about the constraints of a single-viewpoint narrative, whether first- or third-person. I told her to consider switching, in later chapters, to another point of view so as to vary the tone, and to introduce another source of information. I didn’t say completely what I thought, which was that I was tired of her narrator and her incessant complaints.

But I wasn’t prepared for the choice she made. Scenes from Jason Hall’s college experience, instead of being described in a series of conversations between the heroine and her lover, now were narrated directly from the point of view of a new character, the English professor’s teenage son.

“I think it’s a bold choice,” I said, in the coffee shop on Charles Street. “But I wonder if you know enough to do him justice. Or like him enough. Viewpoint characters, you have to like them a little bit. I mean, didn’t you say you thought he was kind of a loser?”

“That’s what Jason said. But I’m thinking the truth is maybe more complicated, and it’s not as if Jason always told the truth. I think now maybe he was jealous of that kid. Just because of his proximity. Jealousy would have been a new experience for Jason, and one he didn’t understand very well. Besides, they were friends, in a way. When he was living there during his junior year, he said he used to go into the kid’s room and listen to Miles Davis.”

“But you never met him.”

She made a quick gesture with her hand. “You’re the one who’s always telling me to invent a little more, not worry about the facts. Make up your mind. No, I never met him. Not as far as I know. Besides, maybe I did see him once, at least at a distance.”

I looked into the bottom of my teacup and said nothing. I had wondered how she had managed to render the English teacher’s house so precisely; no doubt Jack Shoots was a brilliant young man, but I found it hard to imagine him describing the layout of the rooms in such complicated and colorful detail. “He brought me up there once,” she said, “and he pointed out the house—he didn’t think anything about it. I didn’t let him know I was interested. But I saw a kid on the front porch. Glasses. Curly hair. I figured he looked a lot like his mother. At least that’s what I’m going to write.”

“On the front porch? That could have been anybody,” I said.

Irritated, she shook her head. “Sure, but that’s the person I’m going to describe. Do you have a problem with that? Besides, you’re wrong. He doesn’t have to be likable. Nobody in this story is likable so far. He doesn’t even have to be credible. Jason used to talk about him a lot.

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