Point of View

The majority of this novel is written from a third-person narrator's point of view with an emphasis on Billy. Consider the opening sentence in the novel: “Billy Summers sits in the hotel lobby, waiting for his ride” (1). The narrator reports on all of Billy Summers’ emotions, thoughts, and actions. This narrator is biased because he alone has complete knowledge of Billy. All of the other characters’ emotions and intentions are interpreted through the information that Billy has of them. For instance, he suspects that Nick is planning to have him killed, but neither Billy nor the reader understands why until Nick tells Billy the entire story.

The novel Billy writes is narrated from the first-person point of view by Billy. Consider the opening sentence of Billy’s novel: “The man my ma lived with came home with a broke arm” (56). This first-person point of view...