Point of View

Bright Young Women is written from the first person points of view of the two protagonists, Pamela Schumacher and Ruth Wachowsky. The sections marked with Pamela’s name feature sequences from Pamela’s first person account, and those marked with Ruth’s name feature sequences from Ruth’s first person account. By writing the novel from the points of view of the women associated with Ted Bundy’s crimes, the author gives their stories precedence over The Defendant’s. In Pamela’s opening section of the novel, “Pamela, Montclair, New Jersey, Day 15,825,” Pamela reveals that in the “forty-three years since [her] brush with the man even the most reputable papers called the All-American Sex Killer,” her name “has long since fallen to a footnote in the story” (1). In Bright Young Women, Knoll centers Pamela’s perspective and account in order to authenticate her version of...