Ray is narrated in both the first and third person by the title character. This narrative strategy brings together the past and the present, the Civil War and the Vietnam War, the Old South and the New. By relating events in both the third and first person, the ambiguity of Ray's consciousness is accessible to the reader. He lives both in the present and the past, among the living and with the dead.

The novel itself is as fragmented as Ray's imagination. There are frequent leaps in time (from the present back to the Civil War or the Vietnam War), disorienting shifts from the first to the third person (sometimes even in the same sentence), and bizarre developments throughout the novel. All of these techniques, however, reflect Ray's perception of life.