Godwin's third-person omniscient narrator is a multifarious village voice; or, looked at another way, a roving reporter with unlimited access, thanks to a good mike and a supply of truth serum, so that enough of the McNairs' sad—or to some readers, hopeful—domestic chronicle can be presented meaningfully. Admittedly, there is here a disjointed sequence of narrative fragments, private thoughts, impressions, folk wisdom, sound bites, rhetorical questions—transcribed in an inconsistent mix of italics and plain text. But to offset any modest awkwardness in format, there is the overall effect of a very moving story which also gives us a "feel" of the human mind in the act of remembering these happenings selectively, yet including something of everything, in an arresting series of scenes and "dissolves."

Godwin's treatment of her material clearly involves magical realism: an oxymoron at first glance, but a literary method...