Reality and Fantasy

The novel explores the tension between reality and fantasy through the affair that is carried out between Edie and Eric. The novel is heavily interior, existing so entirely inside Edie’s head that other characters are not given quotation marks around their dialogue. Instead, the voices of other characters are italicized so that they are tied seamlessly into Edie’s narrative and seem to exist as a part of her story rather than on their own merits. Everything we experience as readers is filtered through Edie’s consciousness, and the end result is that the story is presented as a pseudo-fantasy, at once heavily realistic and dripping with sensory detail, and simultaneously so inconceivable that logic must be suspended in order to explain large sections of the story, such as Edie’s nearly silent relationship with Rebecca and Eric which lasts weeks while they...