Nara Malone’s Interactive Novel

June 20, 2009 on 10:04 pm | In Uncategorized | 3 Comments

I’m not sure how I arrived at Greyhound Summer, the interactive novel written and blogged by Nara Malone, but I am sure I like it.

The main character, Arie, reminds me of all the ragged teen heroines I wrote in my late teen/early twenties days of online RPGs, of the heroines who continue to whisper in the back of my mind when I hear Nickelback or Staind or Kid Rock on the radio. Her voice is dry and a little bitter, but the bitterness doesn’t grate on my reader’s ear–maybe because intimacy and invitation layer over the bitterness, drawing me in instead of pushing me away.

Nara’s voice, in blog posts that aren’t fiction, closely matches Arie’s voice: intimate, welcoming, non-abrasive–you won’t go wrong if you skip the fiction and stop by just for the author’s blog updates. But I do recommend what I’m seeing of the fiction. Greyhound Summer makes me want to buy a bus ticket. Memories of bus trips from Boston MA to Clarksburg WV, however, remind me to keep my credit card in my purse and my feet in Maryland.