Point of View

The novel is written from various first person points of view. The introduction and “Notes Critical and Historical” sections are written from the fictional editor and historian Alasdair Gray’s point of view. The “main part of [the] book” is written from Archie McCandless’s point of view, and represents his autobiographical text originally titled “Episodes from the Early Life of a Scottish Public Health Officer” (xiii). Throughout Archie’s memoir, letters written from Duncan Wedderburn’s and Bella Baxter’s first person points of view intrude upon and punctuate his first person account. The penultimate chapter, “A Letter to Posterity,” is written from Victoria McCandless’s point of view, and refutes the majority of Archie’s preceding narrative. In the introduction, Gray explains that he used the letter as “an epilogue to the book,” because Victoria’s perspective is clearly “the letter of a...