Point of View

The Good Lord Bird is told, with the exception of the Prologue, entirely from the first person point of view of Henry Shackleford. The novel is told by the very elderly Henry to his likewise elderly friend many years after the events of the novel. As a result, the narrator can be seen as somewhat unreliable, and some events seem exaggerated or almost cartoon-like, especially when bullets are flying or John Brown is present. There are repeated inconsistencies or holes in Henry's re-telling of the tale, but this should be seen as a realistic way an historic event is told when the witness is far removed from the action. Most of the time, Henry is speaking as a pre-pubescent boy, with all the ignorance and larger than life experiences that entails. Sometimes, the narrator interjects with information from the point of view of the elderly...