This experience, which serves as the emotional engine of the book, haunts Noon's memory, but only in fragments. The reader is never given a single, clear scene that explains the lingering horror and shame. McKinney-Whetstone says this indirect approach was deliberate. I thought that it would have more power if it wasn't crystal clear. Whether and how Noon can be healed account for much of the suspense of the novel.
Details are vivid, giving the book a surging vitality.
Some were gleaned from hours of research, scanning relevant copies of sources like The Philadelphia Tribune , so that the author could be accurate if she said that a musician saw Dizzy Gillespie in Philadelphia in a given year. And some things are so convincing they seem to be based on direct observation. As a matter of fact, she did. A childhood friend of hers had the affliction. It's called 'pica,' where people crave non-food substances.