Genre
Domestic fiction
Setting and Context
The novel primarily takes place on a single block in an unnamed neighborhood in 1985 and immediately after.
Narrator and Point of View
The novel is told from a third-person point of view from the perspective of an unnamed narrator.
Tone and Mood
The tone is pensive, intense, tense, solemn, grieving, supportive, and kind.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Grief is the antagonist of the novel; Dr. Wilf is the protagonist of the novel.
Major Conflict
The major conflict of the novel revolves around Dr. Wilf's struggles to move past his grief and his wife's illness while trying to live his life to the fullest.
Climax
When Waldo makes Dr. Wilf realize what living live is truly about.
Foreshadowing
The teen's death is foreshadowed by their heavy drinking together.
Understatement
The extent to which Dr. Wilf didn't have anything to do with the teenager's death is understated throughout much of the novel (but primarily in its first section).
Allusions
There are allusions to the culture of the time the show is set (from 1985, onward), to the history and geography of the world and the United States, where the novel is presumably set, to mythological concepts derived from Greek, Egyptian, and Roman mythology, to mental health concepts, and to Catholicism and Christianity.
Imagery
When Dr. Wilf remembers the night the teen dies, violent and solemn imagery comes up.
Paradox
Dr. Wilf had nothing to do with the teenager dying, but blames himself for their death.
Parallelism
n/a
Metonymy and Synecdoche
n/a
Personification
The car that the teenager was driving when they died is personified quite frequently in the novel.
