Point of View

This novel is told from the point of view of a third-person narrator with a focus on Yejide and Darwin. Yejide and Darwin’s portions of the story are kept separate as the narrator focuses on one character at a time. Generally, the focus switches from one character to the other only at chapter breaks. However, this varies in Chapter 20 when Darwin and Yejide see each other in person for the first time. Consider the opening sentence in Yejide’s first section of the novel: “‘First thing you have to remember,’ Granny Catherine hold her granddaughter, Yejide, close on her lap, “is that there was a time before time’” (3). Characters are referred to either by their names or by third-person pronouns indicating the use of the third person. Darwin’s sections of the novel are written in a similar manner: “The beat-up white Bedford slow...