Point of View

Rawlings writes her entire book from her own personal first-person perspective, thus the reader is limited in terms of the perspectives of other characters. The author often uses dialogue and attempts to capture the dialects of the poor southern African Americans, the poor southern whites, and one character with a speech impediment. Although the story meanders over a number of years, the stories are not chronologically presented but their timeline can be determined by the naivety or naturally attained wisdom of the author as they pertain to Cross Creek. She is a reliable narrator only to the degree that she uses factual material upon which to build her anecdotes and, admittedly, embellishes them if necessary.

Without her disclaimer of combining some characters and stories, this book would not pass the "James Frey" test for accuracy. But Rawlings was already a popular author when she wrote this...