In Defense of Peripheral Narration: Fitzgerald Vs Hokeah in a Battle of Class, POV, and Power

Have you heard of a book called The Great Gatsby? It’s written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Most folks read it in high school. I didn’t make it to high school (the last grade I completed was the sixth grade) so I didn’t read it until I was an adult (after I went on to obtain a Master’s Degree). If you remember, the novel is told by a character, Nick Carraway, about another character, Jay Gatsby. The reason I’m bringing up this particular book is two fold: (1) It’s well known, and (2) it’s a popular example of peripheral narration, where one character tells the story of another character. Don’t worry this is not a rehearsal of Fitzgerald’s novel. Instead it’s an allusion to mine.

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“Stunning” Novel Cover: Symbolic Representations in Post-Modern Art Forms

There are two questions I love most when it comes to talking about my debut novel. One has to do with the structure, with it’s polyvocality laid atop time jumps spanning three decades, and the other has to do with the cover. It’s a striking image. An image that conveys perfectly the post-modern fracture experienced by the main character, Ever Geimausaddle, and his resilient trek through the process of decolonization.

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The Revival of Juxtaposition & the Reveal of Thematics

When we pick up any literary novel we must commit to being an active reader. We can be entertained by the surface plot and the triangulation between characters, certainly. But the purpose of literary fiction is to dive deeper into the text and search for symbols. Not only the symbols that comprise a larger thematic in a storyline, but, more importantly, the symbols that shape the really real world we walk through every day.

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