Point of View

The novel is written in third-person, with each chapter for the most part following one character and narrating the events through that character’s perspective, as well as narrating that character’s emotions, thoughts, and memories. The events in 1996 are generally in present-tense with the events in 1961 in past-tense. Exceptions to these trends, however, occur several times in the novel, always in the memories. Urania’s chapters, for example, will switch to the perspective of her father, Agustin Cabral, when she remembers his fall from grace. Memories, though often in past-tense, will sometimes change to present-tense or characters in the past will seem to respond to events in the present. All of these literary choices serve to problematize the relationship between memory and life, and make the reader question the ways in which the two influence each other.

The many points of view serve to...