Point of View

The various short stories in the collection unfold from various points of view. Several are written from the third-person, limited perspective – that is, the story is told with a focus on a single central character. Examples include “Suicide, Watch”, “Not Today, Marjorie”, and “Wash Clean the Bones”. Several others are written from the third-person omniscient perspective – that is, the story is told with a focus that shifts between several characters. Examples of this include “The Subject of Consumption”, “Belles Lettres”, and the collection’s title story. Finally, several of the stories are written from the first-person perspective – that is, the story is narrated by the central character. Examples include “The Body’s Defenses Against Itself” and “This Todd”. There are also inclusions of first-person narrative in the title story, but in that case, the point of view is that of a commentator or analyst, rather...