Golden Fool is the second book of Robin Hobb’s Tawny Man Trilogy. It’s about a retired assassin, Fitz, and his best friend, the eponymous Fool. All three books are narrated in first person, by Fitz. I know that there are endless assassin narrators in other books who tend to be snarky and far too cool. They wear unnecessary buckles. Fitz isn’t cool at all.
He is lonely, neurotic, occasionally selfish, funny in an arid sort of way and worried about being middle aged. The Fool, meanwhile, is a histrionic clairvoyant. He won’t say if he’s really a man or a woman, how old he is, or even much about where he’s from. He plays endless roles and although he is, really, Fitz’s only friend, he has lives upon lives that Fitz isn’t allowed to see, full of people he doesn’t know.
