Point of View

This novel is presented in third person, almost exclusively from the viewpoint of the protagonist, Joe Coughlin. He is in almost every scene, although when Joe is in prison, his father goes home after visiting him, and a brief scene is depicted from Thomas Coughlin's point of view. The author appears to have made a good choice in deciding to tell the tale in third person, rather than using first person for Joe's voice. One technical difficulty that would have presented itself is the story would have been filled with the use of "I," given the almost constant presence of Joe in it. Also, a drawback of first person is that the voice can become generic-sounding. With the exception of characters who are insane or extraordinary in some other way, first-person narrative has a tendency to sound alike. By looking at Joe from the distance of...