Point of View by Lucia Berlin

Henrietta is a big fan of Diane Sawyer.

This story's charming conceit can be found in the title. It places narrative perspective or "point of view" at the forefront, with the author playfully dabbling in a delightful meta-narrative. The narrator begins by referencing Chekov's short-story "Grief" as an example of how the emotional impact would be greatly diminished if it was told in the first-person narrative voice. At the same time, Berlin's narrator is in the process of writing a story about Henrietta, a single woman in her late fifties that works as a receptionist at a doctor's office. Her life is quite dull but as the narrator explains: "Nothing happens, actually. In fact, the story isn't even written yet. What I hope to do is, by use of intricate detail, to make this woman so believable you can't help but feel for her." It is now up to the reader to decide whether or not the narrator is successful in their self-imposed challenge. 

The omniscient third-person voice presents all these seemingly mundane details about Henrietta's life (she enjoys watching 60 minutes, has a crush on her rude boss, reads the Sunday paper) in an attempt to elevate the ordinary into the profound through evocative language. The story-within-a-story technique becomes a creative writing exercise for both the narrator and Lucia Berlin where subjectivities often conflate, blurring together. This autobiographical overlap becomes more pronounced when the narrator inserts themselves into the story. In essence, the meta-narrative is structured where the "point of view" is intertwined between the narrator, Henrietta and Lucia Berlin. Once again, Berlin's dynamic writing style dazzles with its sharpness, humor and brevity almost to a fault. The story concludes so quickly and feels almost fleeting before it has time to fully materialize into something substantial. It's still a very fun and enjoyable read though.