Between the two poles of first-person narration and the inaccurately named ‘third-person’ narration lies another, rarely glimpsed, possibility. This is second-person narration, and it is something of a freak: Michel Butor’s La Modification and Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City are among the rare examples.

Second-person narration always looks odd, perhaps in part because it is so rare but mainly because of the ambiguities it inevitably entails. Take the opening of the final story in Tom Petsinis’s new collection, The Lion Tamer: