What is the author's style in Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell?

The point of view of this novel is third person. There is not one specific narrator in this novel. Instead, the novel is told through an authorial point of view in which a narrator tells the story through the eyes of some of the characters but injects his own voice into the narration from time to time. The author of this novel rarely makes comments that are clearly in the voice of the narrator, but it is clear to the reader when the author sidesteps the story line to give background.

The point of view of this novel is similar to the third person omniscient in that it tells the story through the eyes of the characters and also shares their thoughts and emotions. However, this third person point of view is different because it does not offer the intimacy an omniscient point of view might. The authorial voice often interferes, keeping a distance between the reader and the characters that is not present with the omniscient point of view. The choice of point of views works in this novel because the characters are so unpleasant that the reader does not want to share that intimacy with them.