Midnight Hour Encores develops both strong male and female characters in nontraditional roles. Sib's father, for example, takes on the primary parenting role when Sib is only a few days old and balances his career as a writer with his new responsibilities as a father. Sib's mother rejects the responsibility of raising her daughter in order to maintain her independence and to pursue her career options. The reversal of traditional roles offers a source of conflict in the plot as Sib, somewhat bitterly, tries to understand her mother's actions.

The novel contains a few obscenities and mild sexual references, including a scene in which Sib loses her virginity to a Hungarian cellist named Milosz who is last seen heroically sacrificing himself to the boot factory for playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the last number on his contest program. Recreating the culture of the 1960s inevitably invites...