Point of View

The majority of the novel is told from the first-person perspective of Blythe Connor. The chapters consist of Blythe’s manuscript. Addressed to her ex-husband, Fox, the manuscript is written from her point of view as an explanation of her actions, mostly in the past tense. Because Blythe is speaking from the present moment, she provides current insight and opinions about past events. Sometimes, she also slips into the present tense to describe how the past continues to influence her present.

The epigraph and final chapter are told from her perspective in the present tense to capture how she delivers the manuscript. Blythe addresses Fox as “you” throughout the novel: “I’d passed whatever test you were putting me through” (62). In this way, the reader is an illicit observer of Blythe’s most personal and honest writing. Her perspective reveals the complexity of a mother...