What is the author's style in The Graybar Hotel?

The author tells nearly all the stories from the perspective of a first-person anonymous narrator, which appears to increase potential empathy. As most readers will probably not have served time in jail or prison, reading from the "I" vantage point will linguistically set them in the position of any given story's incarcerated narrator. The first-person perspective sets the individuality, and thus the humanity, of the inmates at the forefront. In that vein, many of the themes and conflicts in the collection reflect societal themes and conflict, increasing the reflectivity of the stories as mirrors of humanity as a whole.

When the narrator deviates from this perspective, it effectively complements those stories' themes and narratives. In Daytime Drama, told from the perspective of a third-person omniscient narrator, the protagonist appears to have a mental illness, with all signs pointing to schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder that separates an individual's perception of reality with the reality in which most of the world lives. By telling this story in the third-person, that disorder is clearly expressed in contrast to the other characters and the narrator's description of events. In Leche Quemada, the protagonist was recently released from prison and third-person also complements that character's mental disorientation. Further, the author, serving a life sentence, may have opted for third-person for this story as he has not experienced and may never experience that freedom firsthand.