If explicit, hard-minded, realistic presentation is a literary quality, then Tenderness has plenty of it. Lori's unvarnished revelations about herself and her sex life are but preludes to the harsher realities of the novel; her comments shock like a slap on the arm before being given an injection. The subsequent examination of the thoughts of a serial killer is appalling in its verisimilitude.

As in In the Middle of the Night (1995; see separate entry, Vol 9), Tenderness has two narrative voices, one in the first person and limited to a single character's point of view and the other in the third person, able to move from one character's thoughts to another's.

Lori, the first-person narrator, notes at one point that a favorite teacher had told her "that I had a talent for writing and should keep a journal." This is to explain her vivid, although disjointed, writing...