Point of View

"The Night Always Comes" is written from a third person point of view. This third person narration is limited to Lynette's consciousness. By writing the novel from this narrative vantage, the author both allows the reader access to Lynette's interiority, and enacts the separation Lynette feels from herself and those around her. However, at the start of the narrative, Lynette is reluctant to acknowledge and own the person she used to be. The narrator, therefore, attends primarily to descriptions of Lynette's movements through a typical day, and resists fully inhabiting her secret and vulnerable feelings. For example, in Chapter 2, after Lynette gets her exam score back, she sits in the car with Kenny and tells him, "Just give me a minute" (12). In this moment, the narrator does not slip into Lynette's mind and describe what she is thinking and feeling. Rather, she stays just outside...