Point of View

This novel is told using a first-person narrator, the main character and family doctor, Marc Schlosser. Marc’s position as the narrator means that, even though the central incident of the plot entirely occurs to Julia, the novel itself is about Marc’s emotions and reactions surrounding this incident. Accordingly, positioning Marc as the narrator is what allows the novel -- in particular the second half of the novel -- to be a mystery novel. Some characters, in particular Julia and Alex, know the identity of Julia’s rapist immediately, and other characters, such as Ralph, come to know the identity of the rapist a short while later. However, Marc, as he tries various ways to sift through the clues that are available to him, is one of the very last of the interested characters to discover the identity of Julia’s rapist, keeping the...