Point of View

While the entire novel is told in a third person omniscient narrative style, the chapters alternate between the perspectives of the four main characters, Kache, Nadia, Snag, and Lettie. The final chapter, however, as it serves the purpose of an epilogue, moves among the perspectives of Kache, Nadia, and Snag to capture the mental state of each as the story comes to a close (Lettie has passed away).

These changing perspectives throughout the book allow the reader to gain new insight little by little and better understand the motivations of the main characters, as we are frequently provided with their interior monologues. For example, there are several instances where Snag has thought about her secrets long before they were brought out into the open to discuss, and when Kache and Nadia go to Altai to retrieve her documents, we know he forgot to ask for...