Poquette has a bachelor's degree in English and specializes in writing about literature. In the following essay, Poquette discusses Edwards's exploration of perception in "The Way It Felt to Be Falling."

"The Way It Felt to Be Falling" is an extremely visual story. Right from the first sentence of the story, Edwards uses language that underscores the idea of perception. Says Kate, the narrator: "The summer I turned nineteen I used to lie in the backyard and watch the planes fly overhead, leaving their clean plumes of jet-stream in a pattern against the sky." Kate is a first-person narrator, meaning that the reader experiences the story from Kate's point of view, seeing the world of the story through her eyes alone. As Kate progresses through the story, the reader gets to know Kate's thoughts about real and perceived reality. Edwards uses the idea of perception to underscore...