Point of View

The point of view comes entirely from the first-person perspective of the narrator, Henry Park. As in any first-person narrative, the reader's perception of characters and events is colored by the narrator's own peculiar prejudices and the issue of reliability in narration arises. With Henry Park, we have a narrator that is so obviously flawed and troubled that it gives us a sense that we are getting a more reliable narration because we believe we can tell when Henry is being less than subjective.

A significant part of the narrative, especially in the first half of the novel, includes flashbacks. Somehow the narrator manages to do this without ever letting the readers feel like exposition is being delivered. Henry as narrator never really seems to tell us anything or give us an outright explanation that would come across as dry exposition. Instead he allows current action...