Point of View

Nunez’s novel is told by an unnamed, first-person narrator in the present tense. This unnamed narrator often relays flashbacks to the reader, describing her relationship with the unnamed “you” and experiences in her writing career. As the novel progresses, then, the unnamed narrator reveals more of her past to the reader, enabling the reader to more completely understand the narrator’s grief at losing her friend and struggles in her writing life.

As the narrator’s relationship with Apollo develops and the two essentially “fall in love” (88), the narrator increasingly confesses her own madness. At times, she says she feels like she is living “in a fairy tale” (123), and at other times, she says outright she lives “with one foot in madness” (155). Despite these confessions that the narrator is insane, and despite her unusual relationship with Apollo, the unnamed narrator remains reliable throughout the...