Point of View

The entire novel is told from the viewpoint of the protagonist, Rusty Sabich, who uses the first-person perspective throughout it. Rusty is either present or is the narrator in every scene, which is a convention that makes point of view quite easy for the author to negotiate. The reader is never allowed inside the mind of anyone else in the novel. Sometimes, Rusty postulates what someone else might be thinking but everything that happens in the book is seen through his eyes. If he wasn't in a place where something happened, then that activity is reconstructed through Rusty's dialogue with someone who was there, or through an investigation that reveals what happened at the time and place.

For at least two reasons, this choice of viewpoint is probably a good one. This was the author's first novel, which means he was still new at the tricks...