Point of View

Beautiful Losers has three points-of-view, one for each book in the novel. The first two chapters are first-person - each from a different character's vantage point - and the epilogue is third person omniscient. None of these points-of-view is particularly reliable from a narrative standpoint.

The first book is told from the Narrator's point-of-view. This book is perhaps the least reliable as a straight narrative. The narrator is profoundly depressed after the deaths of the two people he loves. This section is nonlinear and free-association in its style. The narrator routinely confuses past and present and himself and F. In his pain and desperation, he forms a system of beliefs and rituals that he thinks will cure his depression, constipation, and burns.

The second book is a letter from F., and thus, it is from his point-of-view. F.'s letter is more carefully constructed than the...