I've not finished the book yet, but so far it is a scary roller coster of events and emotions. I'm going to start of by saying I like how the book is written in third person so we can see all the characters and not just Nathan's point of view. My biggest question so far is why does Nathan's family moves so much? I assume it will come out in the reading but I still can't link it to anything yet. I think it may have something to do with Nathan and his father's incestual relationship and people finding out about it. My next question is why is Nathan's mother is so passive about it? Yes I see that she doesn't call attention when Nathan enters the house to eat and she certainly tries to help Nathan in very casual/ sneaky ways to distract from the father. She barely says anything about it though, and it's not like it's kept as a secret from her. She defiantly knows about it. Yes, I also realize the book is set in the 70's so its taboo for a women to be going against her husband, but it's her own child! Wouldn't you want to try to help a little more? Again this could lead back to the reason why they moved, being that she told someone to stop it and they moved before anything could happen to end it.
I agree about the third person. I feel it gives the book a different look that we haven't experienced yet this semester. With Salvage the Bones and Bellocq's Ophelia we were given the story only from one side. For me I was constantly wondering how the other characters saw Ophelia or Esche. With Street Car Named Desire, with the layout of the play we were constantly in the world of what is real and what is imagined. What are the characters ex-gradating? The use of third person rationalizes a lot of the questions I have while reading. Having an almost inside to Nathan's mom's marriage. However how what is the author hiding now that it is third person? What does he know that we cant yet?
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