Point of View

Each of these nonfiction essays is written in the first person through the perspective of Jo, the author, who is also a featured character in all of the essays. There are a couple of slight exceptions. For instance, the short essay "Against the Grain" appears to use a second person narrator: "He notices you standing there and grins" (71). However, there are other sentences within that same essay that utilize a first person narrator: "Just don't try to remodel a house with one, is all I can say" (71). There are portions of other essays that briefly use a third person narrator. Namely, some of the scenes between Jo's mother and Jo's aunt in "Cousins" (42-45), and the scenes that imagine the travels of a lone coyote in "Coyotes" (51-52).

The essay "Bulldozing the Baby," which shares an anecdote from Jo's early childhood, demonstrates how, as an...