If We Were Villains

The first-person narrator of the novel, in the present Oliver has just finished a 10-year prison sentence for the murder of his classmate Richard Stirling. Oliver is now 31, a quiet, likeable man with a heavy past. Oliver’s narrative voice is self-deprecatory, revealing that he thinks of himself as a side character in his own story. However, as the plot progresses and Oliver revisits the circumstances of his supposed crime, the reader begins to see that Oliver is not as insignificant as he claims. The gap between Oliver’s telling and actual events paints Oliver as a somewhat unreliable narrator, though his motives are not malicious.

Oliver describes himself as “average in every imaginable way: not especially handsome, not especially talented” (24), but through the eyes of others, it is obvious Oliver is a good actor. Moreover, he is more physically imposing than he realizes, being taller than the slender James. Oliver loves books and the works of Shakespeare, to the extent that the literary world is a continuum of real life for him. However, unlike Richard or James, Oliver still knows how to be himself. Within his intimate circle of friends, Oliver occupies the role of the practical, sensible, and passive one.