Point of View

Phil Klay uses first-person narration in the first half of the novel and third-person for the climactic Book III and Book IV epilogue in order for the reader to construct meaning gradually from complementary facets of an ever-connecting story. Each of the four main characters has an equal part in relating the essential background for the reader to grasp the cause-and-effect for the stakes and implications of Book III's dramatic action and idea content. This formal choice lets Klay fill in key bits of detail and context from the individual narrations towards unifying their narrative threads into a coherent whole. By giving Abel the opening narration, Klay dramatizes for the reader the conditions of provincial life during the Colombian civil war and the emergence of the notorious drug cartels as a third force of oppression corrupting both the government paramilitaries and the communist guerrilla. His...