Pulitzer novelist Richard Russo in tomorrow’s New York Times Book Review implies an author’s characters are alternate personalities (as are his own)

“Not all writerly largess derives from their relationship to readers…It can also be about how a writer relates to her characters — her willingness to put their needs before her own [implying they are people in their own right, and so have needs, as anyone does]. The source of such charity, I suspect, is humility, and it manifests as an eagerness to step aside, to suppress one’s ego. Such writers take on faith that, if you’re able to lose yourself in fictional others [i.e., step aside, since the characters, like autonomous alternate personalities, seem to have minds of their own], any additional storytelling obligations will naturally fall in line or become irrelevant. Your plot is thin? So what? The pace of your narrative unexpectedly slows? You can live with it. The story assumes an odd, unanticipated shape? Well, so does life. This last is the kind of generosity that I particularly associate with Miller’s work, and it’s showcased again in her fine new novel, Monogamy” (1).

Search Richard Russo to see past posts on his multiple personality.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/books/review/sue-miller-monogamy.html [front page in tomorrow’s print edition of The New York Times Book Review].