What is the author's perspective in the memoir, Firebird?

As with many memoirs, the narrative’s perspective is primarily defined by considerations of the past undertaken from a position in the present: the author places events of his younger life within a hinted at context of what he became as he got older. This is not meant to suggest that the book is filled with comparisons, but is instead meant to shape a sense, in the reader, that as an adult, the author has come to a greater and deeper understanding of his childhood and youth - that is, of what early-years events, circumstances, and feelings meant, or might have actually been about.