10 Selected Second Person POV Stories For You!
My third newsletter is all about the second person POV!
Hi!
I made this small Happy Easter wish for ‘you’ using paint. I wanted the word ‘you’ to stay with ‘you’ as you read this newsletter. This newsletter is split into three parts.
(1) 10 Selected Second Person POV Stories For You
(2) Recommendations- A Novel, A TV Show, A Poetry Series Using Second Person
(3) 5 Second Person Stories Of Mine Published Online
I love writing in the second person. My first story in second person titled ‘Silence’ was published by The Bombay Literary Magazine in 2016. After that, I sort of got addicted to the second person narration. It is rare in fiction, you won’t find many novels written in second person, however, there are a few famous ones like Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which is also a movie. Here is an interesting article by Hamid on why he loves the second person narration.
Google tells you a lot about novels narrated using second person narration but not many short stories turn up when you search for them, so I searched my favourite online literary journals with a fine toothed comb and I found so many!
Here are my picks of 10 interesting second person short stories that I came across-
1. The Sex Lives Of African Girls by Taiye Selasi - GRANTA
Begin, inevitably, with Uncle. There you are, eleven, alone in the study in the dark in a cool pool of moonlight at the window. The party is in full swing on the back lawn outside. Half of Accra must be out there. In production. Some fifty-odd tables dressed in white linen table skirts, the walls at the periphery all covered in lights, the swimming pool glittering with tea lights in bowls bobbing lightly on the surface of the water, glowing green. The smells of things – night-damp earth, open grill, frangipani trees, citronella – seep in through the window, slightly cracked. You tap the glass lightly and wave your hand, testing, but no one looks up…
Read the full story here.
2. This Is Not The End by Aarti Monteiro- Wildness
Years later, as you watch your oldest daughter get on an airplane to move across the world, recall the walks you and Peter took next to the rice field in Goa. You meet there most days—Peter to get out of the house, away from an uncle who doesn’t think he should live there, and as the sixth of eleven children, the rice field is the only place you can breathe. His hair is jet black, somehow darker than yours, and a thick mustache rests above his lips. Watching the women bent over picking rice, their saris tucked into their waists, Peter says he wants to get married and move to Bombay…
Read the full story here.
3. How To Date A Brown Girl by Junot Diaz- The New Yorker
Wait until your brother, your sisters, and your mother leave the apartment. You’ve already told them that you were feeling too sick to go to Union City to visit that tía who likes to squeeze your nuts. (He’s gotten big, she’ll say.) And even though your moms knew you weren’t sick you stuck to your story until finally she said, Go ahead and stay, Malcriado…
Read the full story here.
4. A Stroller In The Supermarket by Mohit Parikh- Identity Theory
You stroll with an empty trolley, reading labels and taking in the myriad of impressive colours. It is much like being in a Crossword Bookstore, your head is tilted, you mumble as you gently walk, stop, pick out a product from one of the open shelves and read the blurb-like descriptions: A great day begins with a great start / Every bowl of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes has toasted flakes of golden corn, sun-ripened in Indian fields. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes is fortified with 8 essential vitamins and iron. These nutrients can help your family perform throughout the day and stay healthy.
Read the full story here.
5. Fling by Jayashree Panicker- Quarterly Literary Review Singapore
In less than four months since its conception, your secret fling feels like that open can of soda left in the fridge for too long. A naked Anand lies on his back, biting a stale chocolate wafer, letting shard-like crumbs fall from the sides of his mouth. Some shards land on the swatch of hair sheathing his caramel, toned chest. Just weeks ago, you would have extended your arm to brush them off. A heady rush would have enveloped you as your fingers grazed his body. Not today.
Read the full story here.
6. That Which Cannot Be Said by Dyuti Mishra- Bengaluru Review
You write a novel. It won’t be hugely popular. You are a woman writer and, as much as women writers are “having a moment”, you know your moment is short lived. Your publisher went with a print run of three thousand copies and your advance was only enough to cover half of your credit card bill. You’re still job hunting in a market that doesn’t require your skills anymore and you are months behind on rent. But you have a published novel under your name, something you wanted for yourself for as long as you can remember and here it is - two hundred and eighty four pages, hardbound and retails at three hundred and fifty rupees.
Read the full story here.
7. Here Is What You Do by Chris Dennis- Literary Hub
You wet your hair in the sink, then comb it back, slick as a new trash bag. You look nice. Okay, so your name is Ricky. You are twenty-three years old. People say you’re sweet. You say to them, “No, I’m not.” But you are. You know you are. You can’t help it. It’s like there’s a piece of candy hidden deep inside you and everyone is trying to find the easiest way to get it out.
Your cellmate, Donald Budke, he’s like Rasputin, or Genghis Khan, maybe even Napoleon Bonaparte. No one tells Donald he’s sweet. His motives are serious, and he’s got acne scars that make him look like a criminal. He is a criminal. He’s ten years older than you, is on his fourth year of a fifteen-year sentence for manslaughter. You’re just a high school history teacher from southern Indiana, or at least you used to be.
Read the full story here.
8. A Rogue Planet by Thomas Pierce- The Masters Review
Are you watching this too? Do you see the face? How come we’ve never even heard of this planet until now? Can you believe this is really happening? When you first heard the news of a planet that’s come creeping into our solar system, a planet with a face, did you assume they meant that figuratively? Does it scare you that they most definitely do not mean that figuratively? Are you still in bed? Are you under the covers with the phone to your ear? Is your husband at work right now? If he was home would he be holding you in his arms or in the kitchen preparing himself a breakfast burrito?
Read the full story here.
9. Big Feelings by Ian Sunders- Craft Literary Magazine
When you arrive, the boy is perched on the kitchen island with a serrated knife in his hand.
Stabbing at the vacuum-sealed top of a plastic cereal bag.
When he sees you in the doorway, he grins a wild grin.
And he stabs another stab.
You throw your keys to the ground and leap across the room.
You snatch away the knife with fearless agility.
The boy is too shocked to react. He didn’t know you had that in you.
You didn’t know you had that in you. Read the full story here.
10. Quintessence by Clifford Thompson- Four Way Review
In the early morning, before anyone else is awake, the orange-yellow glow of the shaded lamp cuts the gray semi-darkness. Beside the lamp, on the sofa, you half-sit, half-lie among the cushions, reading a book with the help of glasses you have needed only recently; with a small device and earphones you listen to wordless music. The early hour, the dullness of the book, the rise and fall of the notes weaken your concentration, and without your knowing it, your eyes close.
Read the full story here.
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(2) Recommendations- A Novel, A TV Show, A Poetry Series Using Second Person
Here’s second person narration used in different forms-
a. Novel- The Push By Ashley Audrain
I liked unreliable narrators. The unreliability of this narrator is established in the first few pages itself. The ‘You’ in this story is the narrator’s husband. If you enjoy psychological thrillers, you will love this. Blythe, our narrator, wants to prove herself to Fox, her husband. She wants to prove that she can be a good mother, her constant need to please him and seek his validation kept me hooked to the story. I enjoy domestic stories. And this story is about motherhood, about the unconventional thoughts and feelings that Blythe has towards her daughter Violet.
A few lines from the story-
‘How long my milk would take to go dry, for my breasts to give up the proof that she had been born. These are thoughts I never let leave my lips. These are thoughts most mothers don’t have.’
Read an excerpt here.
b. TV Show- How To With John Wilson
Here’s a review of the show on Vox.
c. Poetry Series- ‘How To’ Poems by Silver Birch Press
There are wonderful poems on this blog that are published under that tag ‘How To’.
Check them out here. Since April is National Poetry Month, all poets out there might enjoy this.
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3) 5 Second Person Stories Of Mine Published Online
We reach the final section of this newsletter, you can ignore this completely :) These are my second person short stories that are available online, if you want to explore them:
The Guy Who Could Dance- Out Of Print
Silence- The Bombay Literary Magazine
You Don’t Step Out Of The House For A Long Time- Usawa Literary Review
You Swipe Right- MAD Asia
You Have A Problem- Queen Mob’s Teahouse
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Until next time, please let me know what you think of my newsletters, would love to hear from you. :)