Point of View

The novel’s narration is written in the third person and the past tense. At any given point, the narration adheres to a perspective that is limited to a single character’s point of view. However, there are multiple point-of-view characters, and the novel sometimes shifts perspectives, even within chapters. The point-of-view characters—Jimmy, Johnny, Feng Fei, Nan, Pat, Jack, Annie—include almost every major character in the novel. The only character who is not a point-of-view character and who is arguably still a central character is Pang, who is instrumental in enabling many of the major plot turns. The novel’s perspective is both expansive and limited, for while it only adheres to one perspective at a time, the comparisons between the many perspectives allow the reader to gain a broad sense of the interpersonal thoughts and dynamics of the story.

These juxtapositions between...