Point of View

The novel is written from the third person point of view. While the third person narrator often assumes an omniscient authority over the narrative events, she also employs free indirect association with each of the novel's main characters: Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan Lang. In the first chapter, "The Field," and the final two chapters, "The Salon of Second Chances" and "The Degree Show," the narrator moves between the Lang children's consciousnesses within the space of the same chaptered containers. In all of these chapters, the siblings share the same physical location and experience similar things while in this common space. so the narrator alternates between narrating their collective consciousnesses, their individual thoughts, and the world beyond. For example, in Chapter 1, Matthew, Zoe, and Duncan all walk home from school together, and discover Karel's body in the field. While Matthew looks "at the sky, mostly blue...