Debra Spark: Stand Back (July 2004)

Noting that narrators of much contemporary American fiction tend to be so close to their subjects that they inhibit creative freedom and limit vision, Spark explores the benefits of “standing back,” including the paradox that narrative distance from the action being described actually permits greater emotional intimacy. She looks at successful examples of such narrative distance in work by Deborah Eisenberg, Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, Elizabeth Strout, Akhil Sharma and others.