Point of View

The point of view in Kudos is, at least on the surface, one of the more straightforward elements of the novel: Faye narrates all events in the first person. It is significant that Cusk never employs a third person or omniscient narrator, who might “know” things that other characters do not, or offer some kind of independent confirmation of the stories that secondary characters relate to Faye. The novel is an exercise in first-person storytelling, relying entirely on subjective representations of events. There is no independent confirmation of the aural stories communicated to Faye; the reader only has her characterization of events to rely on.

But, on a more complex level, the book is also about interrogating points of view, and the way that the same events might look different to different people. While Faye is a polite and attentive listener, the first-person stories that...