Point of View

The point of view of the novel is mainly third person omniscient, though it does occasionally break into first and second person, but only briefly. The third person narration mainly stays with Pete, though there are also regular breaks in which it switches to a third person, interview-style segment with his daughter Rachel, in which the interviewer is never identified. The interviewer's questions are distinguished in bold. The third person narration also occasionally follows Cecil, and once there is an interview-style second person narration which addresses Jeremiah Pearl in bold text, though he does not respond like Rachel does; the questions are left unanswered, hanging in the air. This second-person narration also pops up sporadically throughout Pete's narrative, sometimes switching mid-sentence from the third-person narration to address his inner thoughts, but almost as if he is being told what he thinks, rather than telling the...