Joyland

The narrator, the older Devin, is looking back from a future in which he knows everything that happened and has a perspective different from that of his younger self. This has the effect of blending the first person (I/me) and the omniscient (knows everything from a perspective outside the story). First person is typically limited by what the narrator knows in the moment, and even then, the narrator can only report what he or she is consciously aware of. For example, Devin never recognizes what is obvious to the reader—that Wendy doesn’t and probably never did love him as much as he loved her.

Like an omniscient narrator, the older Devin is able to look back and tell the reader what the younger Devin doesn’t understand—that Wendy never deserved him. He can also say directly to the reader that his younger self’s thoughts of suicide are more self-indulgent fantasy than a real desire to harm himself.

One of the particular features of the omniscient narrator is that—like the older Devin—he can move back and forth in time, telling the reader what will happen in the future that his younger self obviously cannot see.