Though I ended up morphing into a fiction writer, I entered my MFA program as a poet, and my teacher was Richard Hugo at the University of Montana [this was in the mid-1970s]. Hugo's own poems often used second person--I don't have space here to give examples. One of the more well known ones, "Degrees of Grey in Philipsburg," begins: "You might come here Sunday on a whim. / Say your life broke down. The last good kiss / you had was years ago . . . " I understand that some people feel that this form is mannered and off-putting, but I absorbed it easily, as an option. I can't ever remember trying a story one way, then trying it again in second-person . . . it was more a case of just hearing a story start in that voice. I wrote a story called "Skull" [it's about a girl freaking out about the thought that who she is is inside a skull that will outlast her] that begins:
YOU’RE FOUR HITS INTO A BOWL of two-hit weed, you and a waif named Keiko. It’s the now-distant summer you sublet that rathole on Grosvenor Avenue, a time when your life still could go many ways.
That's how I heard the voice. It wasn't a conscious technical decision. I like the strangeness or this POV, the ambiguity of who's being addressed--one part of self talking to another, one part of self talking to another as if it were a separate entity that needs to be let loose or reined in? We think of this as a strictly modern invention, but you find writers of the past slipping in and out of it at will. Another aspect is that in American English we find "one" too prissy/formal and use "you" to mean "a person," so in a second-person story there's a slight echo of that, of "you" being an example of people generally.
Your story and its context strike me as an ideal use of "you." Mavis Gallant also wrote an excellent second-person story, "Mlle Diaz de la Corta" I think its title is. It took me a little more time to get into it than some of her others, but it's stayed with me.
Your post flashed me back Bright Lights, Big City and my complicated relationship with that novel. It was a book that I loved when I first read it then hated. I then realized I hated it because of a) jealousy at the success of a novel that told a story I could have told b) a lot of my friends' hated it and, without quite realizing it, I succumbed to peer pressure c) it was a good comic novel marketed as a generational event and d) I realized that Jay McInerney was kind of a tool. But it is a wonderful use of the second person which is, here, a kind of symbiosis of author, narrator, and audience. And it enabled one of the best first lines ever: "You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning." Quoted from memory, with one correction. (My memory had replaced the first "at" with an "in.")
It's amazing you remember that first sentence so well! And I think all of us have at least a few books where we read them, admire them, and also think, Jesus, why didn't I write this book first? (Or, I could write this and better, maybe.)
Loved reading about second person. Not a big fan but an essay tumbled out once and who knew, it worked the the la times. That said, I'd be surprised if I used it again.
You are reading Christine's post on second person and it's convinced you not to use it!
😂 (I must admit that I find second person a bit much most of the time...the royal we/first-person plural is much more fun to read and write!)
p.s. You have me thinking about narrating something in 2nd person! Dare I try it for a novel?
You of all people could pull it off - but I do think 2nd person is a severely mixed bag if it is longer than a short story, tbh.
Hear ya.
Though I ended up morphing into a fiction writer, I entered my MFA program as a poet, and my teacher was Richard Hugo at the University of Montana [this was in the mid-1970s]. Hugo's own poems often used second person--I don't have space here to give examples. One of the more well known ones, "Degrees of Grey in Philipsburg," begins: "You might come here Sunday on a whim. / Say your life broke down. The last good kiss / you had was years ago . . . " I understand that some people feel that this form is mannered and off-putting, but I absorbed it easily, as an option. I can't ever remember trying a story one way, then trying it again in second-person . . . it was more a case of just hearing a story start in that voice. I wrote a story called "Skull" [it's about a girl freaking out about the thought that who she is is inside a skull that will outlast her] that begins:
YOU’RE FOUR HITS INTO A BOWL of two-hit weed, you and a waif named Keiko. It’s the now-distant summer you sublet that rathole on Grosvenor Avenue, a time when your life still could go many ways.
That's how I heard the voice. It wasn't a conscious technical decision. I like the strangeness or this POV, the ambiguity of who's being addressed--one part of self talking to another, one part of self talking to another as if it were a separate entity that needs to be let loose or reined in? We think of this as a strictly modern invention, but you find writers of the past slipping in and out of it at will. Another aspect is that in American English we find "one" too prissy/formal and use "you" to mean "a person," so in a second-person story there's a slight echo of that, of "you" being an example of people generally.
Your story and its context strike me as an ideal use of "you." Mavis Gallant also wrote an excellent second-person story, "Mlle Diaz de la Corta" I think its title is. It took me a little more time to get into it than some of her others, but it's stayed with me.
I'll look it up.
It's in the NYRB Paris Stories, I think - not sure which of her collections also includes it.
Your post flashed me back Bright Lights, Big City and my complicated relationship with that novel. It was a book that I loved when I first read it then hated. I then realized I hated it because of a) jealousy at the success of a novel that told a story I could have told b) a lot of my friends' hated it and, without quite realizing it, I succumbed to peer pressure c) it was a good comic novel marketed as a generational event and d) I realized that Jay McInerney was kind of a tool. But it is a wonderful use of the second person which is, here, a kind of symbiosis of author, narrator, and audience. And it enabled one of the best first lines ever: "You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning." Quoted from memory, with one correction. (My memory had replaced the first "at" with an "in.")
It's amazing you remember that first sentence so well! And I think all of us have at least a few books where we read them, admire them, and also think, Jesus, why didn't I write this book first? (Or, I could write this and better, maybe.)
LOVE these thoughts on 2nd person, Christine. You. Are. The. BEST. &: Happy Holidays to you & yours!
Happy holidays to you and E and your resident feline too!
I LOVE second person...in very specific circumstances. I think this post nails it. When it works, it works, and when it doesn't....
Yes - very specific circumstances! Btw, loved your post from earlier this week - going to restack in a moment.
Oh thanks!!
Loved reading about second person. Not a big fan but an essay tumbled out once and who knew, it worked the the la times. That said, I'd be surprised if I used it again.
I think it can work well for narratives about traumatic experiences - the "you" essentially is camouflage for the "I."
That part of your post I loved. The way you shared about how it could work in that regard.
Thank you, Hannah! 🥰