Point of View

The novel is written in the first person and is told from the point of view of four main narrators (Vicente Vardemann, Bicho Souza, Miguelito Barrios, and Ramon Folcada) and one secondary narrator (Lucio Montes). The narration shifts from present tense to past tense whenever a character is recalling something from their past. The author uses the changing points of view on display as a way of withholding certain information from the reader at each stage. This allows the climactic revelation - that Folcada murdered a man and framed Vardemann for the crime after Miguelito protected himself by wrongly identifying Vardemann as the man sleeping with Folcada’s wife - to remain a surprise.

Each narrator has a particular style that reflects elements of his personality, preoccupations, and world view. Vardemann is haunted by his past, which shows itself in his frequent references to locations...