Brightness Falls is a large, sprawling social novel told from a third person omniscient viewpoint. This point of view allows McInerney to enter the thoughts and perceptions of all of his characters and has more in common with the approach of many nineteenth-century novelists than with McInerney's previous work. While the strengths of McInerney's writing remain — his wit, skill of observation, clear prose, and ear for dialogue — this more ambitious approach to the novel moves his love for literary realism from the personal to the social and bespeaks his growth both as writer and as social critic.