What is the narrator point of view in the novel, Forest Dark?

Forest Dark tells the loosely connected stories of two protagonists, a 68-year-old former lawyer named Jules Epstein, and a 39-year-old author named Nicole. Nicole's last name is not provided, but given that this character shares a first name with the author, it is likely that she is something of an extension or stand-in for Krauss herself. This idea is supported by the fact that Nicole's portion of the novel is narrated in the first person. Thus the reader is apprised of her thoughts and feelings, which are largely centered around existential angst. This can become overwhelming, and even pretentious at times, but it is a distinct possibility that Krauss intends for these passages to be a little difficult. Nicole herself (the character) is difficult. She engages in long-winded discourse on physics (the multiverse theory), linguistics (the various Greek words for “time”), literature (interpretations of Kafka), and philosophy (Friedrich Schelling's definition of the uncanny). Nicole is extremely introspective and more than a little self-absorbed, but the novel is a character study, so demonstrating how her mind works is an important part of the project.

The chapters told from Jules' perspective, however, are told in the third-person point-of-view. The narrator of these chapters does provide Jules' thoughts and feelings, but not with the level of detail that Nicole uses when narrating hers. The narrator tells the reader that Jules is grieving over the deaths of his parents, and that he has recently begun acting strangely, giving away his valuable possessions and divorcing his wife, but Jules himself is not even fully aware of why he is behaving this way. The narrator also does not have (or chooses to withhold) the most pivotal piece of information related to Jules' story: what happened to him. The reader is told from the beginning that Jules has disappeared, and in Jules' final chapter, he simply walks off into the desert. The narrator is omniscient enough to know that one of the actors portraying a Philistine is texting on his phone, but unwilling or unable to categorically state where Jules has gone.

It is also made clear that Jules' narrator is omniscient when the reader is briefly given the perspective of his real estate agent (who dislikes showing properties to Americans besotted with Israel), and later the perspective of Haaroon the doorman when he loses the annunciation painting.