Very Old Bones takes place during the morning and afternoon of July 26, 1958 but recalls incidents in the lives of the characters as far back as Malachi and Lizzie's arrival in the United States in 1870. That compression of past time within the novel takes place through the conventionally realistic techniques of dialogue, narration, and flashback but also involves a complex use of point of view.

Orson Purcell's first-person narration involves both omniscient and editorially omniscient points of view, as well as stream of consciousness.

That technique allows effective shifts in time and focus that economically recreate the complex history of both Orson and this family and his is the dominant point of view through the greater part of the novel. But the stream of consciousness point of view changes from Orson to Francis when Francis leaves his mother's wake. Later in the novel the first person point of view...