At BOMB Magazine, Caleb Azuma Nelson discusses his debut novel, Open Water, and the significance of its second person narrator. “Using the second person afforded more intimacy to the narrative,” Nelson says, “which meant that a reader was both audience and protagonist. It thrusts the reader as close as possible into the narrative, into that warmth, into that space where freedom might be found. I guess I’m asking for the reader to participate in the same vulnerability I had to access in order to write the book. I’m asking the reader to come closer, to feel what I felt, and to also tap into what they feel too.”
Caleb Azuma Nelson Wants Readers to Get Vulnerable
