Point of View

The novel is written in the past tense and utilizes a third-person omniscient narrator. The perspective of the novel is at once distant and intimate, as the overall function of the narrative is to track and examine the changes and progress of the community in the years following Rebecca Shaw’s disappearance, and this large scope is informed by particular events in the lives of specific residents over time. This dynamic holds true regarding both the narrative of the community and the narrative of individual characters.

For example, each chapter gives only a slight amount of information about each character, but when that information is synthesized over the 13-year period, it illustrates a full narrative arc for each given character. Moreover, these narrative arcs may then be synthesized into an overall arc of the town. Thus, the novel utilizes both an intimate and distant perspective...