Point of View

Nine of the collection’s ten stories are written using a close third-person perspective. In other words, the narration is written in the third person, but it adheres to one point-of-view character’s perspective. The exception is the story “Marion,” which is written in the first person. All of the stories in the collection use past-tense narration. Each story is written from the perspective of only one character, with the exception of “Northeast Regional,” which briefly shifts into other characters’ perspectives at times. The stories’ adherence to specific, single perspectives allows the narrative to explore the characters’ specific anxieties and emotional tribulations, as well as the external struggles that inform those interior states.

The collection asserts a perspective of its own via the collage of individual character perspectives. Specifically, the emotional register of the collection is often fairly melancholic, as almost all of the characters...