Narrator, not omniscient, not unreliable, not protagonist

[Renate]

I'm thinking of books where the narrator drives things. I hate unreliable narrators; I think that's a cheap trick. But a narrator doesn't have to know everything and doesn't have to be the protagonist.

(Made up example.)

Because of a new contract in the Azores and my ongoing divorce I lost sight of Betty and Jim during the revolution and only ran into them unexpectedly in a little bar in Torremolinos some time in the early spring.

Two examples (out of probably many) that I can think of (no apologies):
"The Razor's Edge", W. Somerset Maugham
"The Drifters", James A. Michener

[issybird]

How about Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby? He's borderline, I suppose; he has his biases, but he essentially gives a truthful account.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by issybird

How about Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby? He's borderline, I suppose; he has his biases, but he essentially gives a truthful account.

Ha, ha. I just read that again as it became PD.
Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) has a pretty good radio play (in German):
https://www.ardaudiothek.de/episode/.../ndr/12699493/
After reading if for the umpteenth time and hearing the radio play a few times I've come to the conclusion that Nick has respect for Gatsby because he had Nick's lawn mowed for him before his tea with Daisy. Of course, I could have missed something.

[Pajamaman]

An Artist of the Floating World. Kazuo Ishiguro. He is super unreliable, but its brilliant.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

An Artist of the Floating World. Kazuo Ishiguro. He is super unreliable, but its brilliant.

Did you see where the OP says she hates unreliable narrators? You could start your own thread instead of derailing this one.

[issybird]

I thought of one, but it's not one I can recommend.

Noel Strachan in A Town Like Alice tells a straight story and he's both important yet tangential to the main story. However, not only is the racism off-putting (depending on where you fall on the "of its times" spectrum), it's a failure technically, since Noel ends up relating things he couldn't possibly have known, i.e., he's omniscient where he couldn't be.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

An Artist of the Floating World. Kazuo Ishiguro. He is super unreliable, but its brilliant.

"Remains of the Day" is why I hate unreliable narrators.
Also, "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd", Agatha Christie: "Reader, I murdered him..."
But let's not go down this rabbit hole.

Originally Posted by issybird

Noel Strachan in A Town Like Alice tells a straight story and he's both important yet tangential to the main story.

That fits the criteria. I've read everything by Nevil Shute. He spins a good yarn for an engineer. "No Highway" gets high marks for being prescient about the dangers of metal fatigue in airplanes.