The Last House on the Street

Chamberlain concurrently tells two stories that occur 45 years apart in roughly the same geographic location. Rather than breaking the stories apart and relating them in chronological order, Chamberlain employs a double first-person narrator point of view. The first-person point of view portrays an intensely personal, in-depth perspective of the narrator’s experience. For instance, when Kayla, the first introduced of the narrators, recognizes that the strange woman in her office is a threat to her and her daughter, Chamberlain heightens her anxiety through her internal monologue. The first person point of view also allows Chamberlain to maintain an element of mystery, as she limits the reader’s perspective to that of the narrator. Thus, she evokes surprise and alarm, along with Kayla, when the mysterious woman turns out to be Brenda, Ellie’s old friend.

Because Chamberlain tells the two narratives simultaneously, alternating chapters, she engages two characters as first-person narrators, the second being Ellie. As the 1965 portion of the narrative draws to a close, Ellie shares its conclusion with Kayla, finishing in Chapter 46 and bringing herself into 2010. At that point, both narrators take turns concluding what has become a single storyline.