Point of View

Everett’s novel is written in a third-person omniscient point of view that shifts between the perspectives of many characters and also sometimes simply observes events from an outside point of view, which results in a feeling of collective experience. This approach aligns with the novel’s subject of racial violence as a collective phenomenon and the idea that the history of lynching in the United States can be viewed as a slow genocide. Later chapters especially tend to give the reader a fuller, more complete picture of events as they are occurring on a societal and national level. For example, Chapter 97 depicts the turmoil and unrest spreading across the country as a result of the growing attacks committed by zombie-like hordes: “Newspapers and networks attempted to connect the incidents of violence across the country. Fox News called it ‘a race war, plain and simple...