The hallmarks of Wideman's style in Sent for You Yesterday are the shifts in point of view and in time, and in the combination of Black English and Standard English. Critics have split in their opinions about the success of these techniques, with some finding the devices confusing and others hailing them as vivid and poetic.

Doot, the narrator who opens and closes the book, begins by describing Brother Tate, a "silent, scat-singing albino man who was my uncle's best friend." Then, in the space of a sentence, the point of view shifts: "I am not born yet. My Uncle Carl and Brother Tate hurry along the railroad tracks . . ." Later shifts do not even contain a small marker; the stories are simply told from Carl's point of view, or Albert Wilkes's, or Samantha's. In one section the perspective shifts so that Lucy Tate describes Doot who was describing...