Aside from the phone call (the “Summons”) in the beginning of the book, there is little–maybe no–dialogue in this narrative. What Taylor is doing–and I’m halfway through–is describing the characters as seen by the narrator in the first person point of view. His method of doing this is by filling the reader in on details of the family’s move from Nashville to Memphis, focusing on the narrator’s two sisters and his father, with a brief explanation of the current whereabouts and status of the narrator himself (New York, live-in girlfriend), and reminding the reader occasionally about the circumstances that require him to respond to the request that he come down to Memphis himself to assist (his father planning marriage).
In the last chapter the narrator has moved onto some background on another character, his best boyhood friend Alex. He is giving us some grounding in the way he and Alex became friends, and more, how Alex and the narrator’s father had automatically formed a close relationship that the narrator himself didn’t manage to establish with his own father.
With all this in-depth perspective on the characters, we get a very clear picture through situations and events of the characters and yet, it is still that; the narrator’s perspective. While we can certainly choose to believe that he believes what he tells us, is it not still a biased view? Does this come under the trust of the reader to believe the narrator’s opinions as being truth or must we take him at his word that what he tells us about these folks is a pretty accurate picture?
Doesn’t this always come into play with the first person pov?
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology