Point of View

Decent People uses a shifting series of limited third-person narrators that attach themselves to four of the novel's characters: Jo, Eunice, Savannah, and Ted. This strategy allows Winslow to delve into the psychologies of each of these characters and overturn the events that inform their beliefs, customs, and personalities, a crucial endeavor in a novel so concerned with the development of ideology and bigotry. It also gives him an opportunity to conceal particular pieces of information until moments when it is dramatically advantageous to reveal them, creating a better sense of tension and narrative flow in the novel.

Although Jo's narration remains relatively static and inquisitive, the sections narrated by the novel's more imperfect actors—Eunice, Savannah, and Ted—give Winslow the opportunity to delve into the past traumas that have created the complex inner worlds that govern their actions in the present. Eunice's childhood...