Point of View

Maddy Lederman tells her novel “Edna in the Desert” in the third-person limited-omniscient perspective. The third-person narrator relates Edna’s story to the reader, as well as providing important contextual information about situations and other characters as well as Edna’s own thoughts and motives. For example, the reader is given Grandma’s critical consideration and understandable concerns about Edna wanting to go out with Johnny so much. This provides a greater depth to events in the novel and helps to explain why Grandma accompanies them to the movies. The limited-omniscient aspect adds both a sense of realism and drama to the novel. In the real world, no one knows everything that is going to happen in the next few seconds or minutes, so that the narrator and characters of the novel do not know either means the novel has a realistic atmosphere to it...