Point of View

When No One Is Watching utilizes two first-person narrators, Sydney and Theo, to illustrate both sides of the taut, racially-charged issue at the center of the plot: gentrification. Sydney, the first narrator introduced and the primary protagonist, characterizes the emotions and experiences of Black people facing cultural and physical erasure from their homes. Theo’s perspective serves as a photo negative of Sydney’s, embodying the ignorance of white people complicit in gentrification’s destructive effect on Black communities. These opposing perspectives create a balanced view of gentrification for the reader, who is able to experience both the role of oppressor and oppressed in the same novel.

Sydney is an unreliable narrator as a result of the psychological abuse and gaslighting she received from her ex-husband, Marcus. Sydney internalizes Marcus’ attacks on her sanity to the extent that she doubts her own instincts and conclusions...