Point of View

The narrator of Every Note Played is a non-exegetic third-person limited narrator. There are two narrative perspectives: Richard and Karina. The narrator also uses free indirect discourse—where a narrator takes on the voice of a character without a speaker tag like “she thought” or “he said”—to give the reader a closer view into Richard and Karina and the way they interact with the world.

However, because these character perspectives and thought processes limit the narrator’s ability to give the reader a panoramic view, this narrative technique allows the author to hide information from the reader. This is particularly important in the case of Richard and Karina’s past. The reader does not learn about Karina’s ultimate betrayal, her use of birth control throughout her marriage to Richard while lying about her “infertility,” until Chapter 31. The subject arises continuously before that, both...