Point of View

The novel is written consistently in the past tense, but the narration adopts many different perspectives, including the varying use of both first and third-person narration. The narrative proceeds in a linear fashion from the day of Brendan’s departure for college to the day of Eve’s wedding to George. However, along the way, the narrative utilizes many different perspectives in order to portray the points of view in what is essentially an ensemble story. Eve is the titular Mrs. Fletcher and is technically the main character, but the novel places about the same amount of emphasis on Brendan’s storyline and gives substantial attention to the storylines of supporting characters like Amanda and Julian.

The narration mostly utilizes a third-person limited mode, giving one character’s perspective at a time, sometimes switching relatively rapidly between perspectives. However, the narration sometimes uses the first...