Point of View

The novel is written in the third-person with an omniscient, subjective narrator who alternately follows Sophia and Art’s perspectives. The narrator also occasionally interjects with commentary on specific contemporary political and social events, from the Grenfell Tower fire to speeches by Donald Trump. These often link to the thoughts and feelings of Sophia and Art, who grow increasingly aware of the world around them as the novel progresses. One of the most experimental aspects of the novel is the constant shifting in narrative tense, from past to present and even to the future. This is dependent on which character’s point of view is being traced. Ironically, when the narrator follows Sophia’s point of view, her memories of the past are conveyed in the present tense, while her experiences in the present are written in the past tense. This establishes how she has...