Point of View

The novel is written from the third-person point of view. Throughout Homebodies, this third-person narrator primarily attends to the main character Mickey’s experiences, feelings, and outlook on the world. The ways in which the narrator describes the narrative world, its circumstances and conflicts, therefore, are closely linked to Mickey’s point of view. For example, while Mickey and Lex are eating dinner and talking about wedding plans in Chapter 1, the narrator shifts away from the larger exterior scene and into the private confines of Mickey’s mind: “Marriage was the making of her own family, the kind of decision she had to get right. Lex had all the signs of being the one: she loved Mickey fiercely and took care of her in ways that were too boring to name. She kept her sane, laughing, fed” (17). Although a passage such as this one could...