Point of View

The point of views of the stories in Holler, Child are predominantly first-person, with two and a half exceptions — “Sweat,” “”Time After,” and the second half of “Everything’s Fine,” three of the last four stories of the collection. “Everything’s Fine” begins with direct narration from one of the characters to Resha, his wife, before shifting to the perspective of Resha in the third-person. All of the other stories are in the first person. There are an array of characters that are described throughout these stories, but all of them are women except for two (“Cutting Horse” and “Dog Person” are narrated by the husbands in a marriage).

“The Mother” is from the point of view of Ms. Hawkins, whose son ran a cult before committing ritualized suicide with them. “Cutting Horse” is narrated by Ridley, a man who lives outside of his house...