Point of View

The novel is written from the third person point of view. Throughout the novel, this third person narrator follows main character Ray Carney's perspective most closely. By allowing the narrator this intimate access to Carney's consciousness, the author establishes Carney as his primary character, and traces his mental and physical journeys over the course of six years. The reader understands this narrative stance on the opening page of the novel. At the start of Part I, Chapter 1, the narrator says, "His cousin Freddie brought him on the heist one hot night in June. Ray Carney was having one of his run-around days—uptown, downtown, zipping across the city" (1). In these opening lines, the reader learns that the narrator will most closely attend to Carney's vantage point. However, the novel opens with the use of the third person pronouns instead of with Carney's name, thus illustrating...