What is the author's tone in The Management of Grief by Bharati Mukherjee?

The tone of the story's third person narration can be described as melancholy and subtle. While the story has great emotional impact, that impact works through understatement and detachment. Shaila's account is almost journalistic in tone, neutrally reporting events. But the weightiness of tragedy behind the narration belies Shaila's unaffected tone. The poignancy of the story is derived not from any outright declarations of misery, but from the readers' recognition of Shaila's voice as speaking from a tenuous, shell-shocked calm.