Point of View

The majority of the story is told from the point of view of a third-person narrator with a focus on Louise. Consider the first sentence of the novel: “Louise thought it might not go well, so she told her parents she was pregnant over the phone, from three thousand miles away, in San Francisco” (1). The narrator has limited information about Louise and her story, and shares only the limited information that he has. For instance, any information the reader gleans about Louise’s parents or her brother is gleaned through what Louise thinks about them or what they say directly to her. This emphasis on Louise and her attitude toward Mark allows Hendrix to fully surprise the reader when he shares that Mark behaved toward Louise and his parents the way he did because Louise tried to kill him and no one ever punished her...