Point of View

Novels traditionally work from either an omniscient author point of view or through the limited agency of a first-person character perspective. The Power of the Dog does both and neither. The novel’s 14 chapters move, chapter to chapter, among multiple points of view, sometimes Phil, sometimes George, sometimes Rose, and sometimes Peter. The point of view is limited omniscient in that the novel never opts for first person intimacy. Rather the events of each chapter are relayed through the perception, disposition, and emotional profile of one character.

Thus, the feeling of the point of view is at once intimate—as, for instance, Phil’s angry and often blunt sense of his surroundings dominates Chapter 4 and colors the narrative of George’s arrival at the ranch with his new wife—but as well distancing, insisting on maintaining a careful moat around the characters. Phil is never...