The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee (author of the amazing Green Bone Saga) does something I’ve seen in very few novels.
Isako is set in a distant cyberpunk future that features samurai and brain transplants (cyborgs, I think you’d call them?). The first half of the book is a series of misadventures involving Isako herself, and I must admit that I was starting to cool on the novel. It was fine, but the stage was already set and yet we still had another 200 pages?
That’s when the perspective shifts.
Instead of following Isako, the book resets to a different character, something we heard about in passing but knew next to nothing about. As it turns out, the book has a second, secret protagonist, and when we start to see the world through his eyes, we realize that everything isn’t as black and white as we had thought. In fact, if flips the script on many core characters and scenes.
Quite frankly, it’s brilliant. It’s far form the first work of fiction to show the same scenes through the eyes of different characters (watch The After Party if you enjoy this conceit), but it has such patience and restraint in the reveal. It would not have had nearly the same impact if every other chapter was from the opposite perspective.
I think I highly recommend The Last Contract of Isako. If you can endure the perfectly fine first half, you’re in for a real treat in the second half. Are there any other books, movies, or TV shows that offer such a fresh shift in perspective?