In Noon Wine, Porter uses third person narration to highlight the interior lives of Mr. and Mrs. Thompson at crucial times during a nine year period.

Mr. Thompson's skirmish of values when he first hires Helton, a foreigner, and his interior monologues about his failure as a farmer show his limitations as a narrator. The assessment he makes of Hatch when he first sees him prepares the stage for his fuzziness about what really happens when he strikes the man.

Parallel settings for the opening scene and the confrontation with Hatch reinforce the reader's readiness for a momentous occurrence. Both scenes take place in brutal heat, which befuddles Thompson's perception, and both take place in the side yard of the farmhouse, a relatively isolated area. Mr. Thompson's premonition of disaster also prepares the reader for the attack on Hatch.

The briefly but clearly documented decline of the Thompsons'...