Point of View

Small Mercies deploys a third-person point of view that shifts between two perspective characters, Mary Pat and Coyne. Lehane also occasionally deploys more inventive styles of storytelling such as transcripts and newspaper articles in order to create an immersive, realistic backdrop for the events of the novel to play out against. Furthermore, one crucial chapter is told almost entirely from the first-person perspective of Rum Collins.

The primary vehicles for the storytelling—the chapters narrated from a limited third-person perspective by Mary Pat and Coyne—function as power vehicles for conveyance in that they preserve the individuality of these characters' perspectives while maintaining a degree of distance from them. Mary Pat's narration is riddled with internal monologues and frantic attempts to deconstruct, understand, or suppress her own biases as she seeks the truth about her daughter and attempts to turn away from the poisonous, insular...