Point of View

Wolfe takes the idea of the omniscient narrator to new levels in The Right Stuff. Not only does he drop in and out of the heads of various characters, letting the reader know what they are thinking, he is vivid and emphatic enough to persuade the reader that he is conveying Jane Conrad of John Glenn's actual feelings at that moment. In a novel this might produce a sense of intimacy or allow the reader to know more than the characters do. In a work of nonfiction like The Right Stuff it also creates an aura of authority around the author by implying inside knowledge, the impression of long interviews with all of the major characters, the suggestion that the information he has assembled here has become more than the sum of its parts.

Primarily, though, Wolfe employs this shifting point of view to intensify the...