Point of View

The novel is written from the third person point of view. Over the course of the novel, this third person narrator divides her attention between the primary characters, including Blaze Duvall, Dawn Coyote, Letch Boggs, Ambrose Lutterworth, Anne Vorn, Tamara Taylor, Mick Fortney, and Oliver Mantleberry. By granting each of these characters a similar amount of attention on the page, the author illustrates not only the ways in which their individual stories are connected, but the similarities between their innate human experiences. Indeed, the third person narrator acts as this formal point of connection between Wambaugh's diverse cast of characters.

Although the narrator is her own distinct entity, she often inhabits the individual characters' psyches, delivering their thoughts and feelings as overarching narrative fact. For example, in Chapter 1, the narrator assumes Letch Bogg's perspective in order to capture the way in which he perceives the...