Point of View

The novel's point of view is complicated by Chapter 1 because it is narrated in the third-person limited point of view. The remainder of the novel, Chapters 2 through 30, is narrated in the first-person limited point of view by Pat Cosgrove. This discrepancy is highlighted by the titles of the first two chapters, namely "Chapter 1 Doc Luther" and "Chapter 2 Cosgrove," while the remaining chapters are only numbered. Chapter 1's point of view, an atypical and significant departure from the remainder of the novel, allows the reader to view the novel's principle antagonist without the protagonist's narrative intrusion or judgment. The construction does prove problematic, however - who is the narrator of the text? For Chapters 2 through 30, the first-person narrator is clearly Pat, yet for Chapter 1 the narrator is an unnamed though reliable presence who does not recur in the remainder of the text. All chapters are written in...