Gordie is the narrator of Stephen King’s The Body (1982), a coming of age story set in 1950s Maine.

The book follows four thirteen-year-old friends who, when hiking in search of a rumoured dead body, find out about life. Gordie tells the story as a reminiscence, his adult character now a successful writer.

 

George is the narrator of Cecil Day Lewis’ 1948 novel The Otterbury Incident, a quintessentially English coming of age tale set in a fictitious market town post WW2. George, acknowledged by his public schoolboy friends as a talented storyteller, recounts ‘the incident’ as an affectionate, adult reminiscence.