Point of View

A Saint From Texas is Yvonne Crawford’s novel. The novel is an elaborate confession of a crime, that is Yvonne’s narrating the years of neglect and misery as the circumstances that led up to her murdering her emotionally abusive husband. Yvonne Crawford, thus, controls the novel’s point of view. She is honest, beyond obfuscation and rationalization.

In keeping with the nature of twins, however, the novel is actually told from a split point of view. The dominant voice is Yvonne’s. She directs most of the narrative. Save for bits of remembered conversation that Yvonne shares, Yvette herself speaks directly only in her lengthy, if infrequent letters from Jericó. This point of view device creates an aura about Yvette appropriate to a saint. She is at once immediate and distant. A letter, after all, creates a feeling of intimacy and closeness while...