What is the author's style in The Smoothest Way Is Full of Stones by Julie Orringer?

The story is told in the first person by Rebecca. This angle means that all the characters are viewed through Rebecca's eyes and through her thoughts and feelings. There is no independent, objective narrator who could explain, for example, what Esty, or Aunt Malka is thinking. They are revealed only through their words and actions and how Rebecca perceives them. An example of how this focus works occurs when Rebecca asks Esty to explain why she is looking at the forbidden book. Esty "glances down and her eyes widen, as if she's surprised to find she's been holding the book all this time." The reader is not told for certain that Esty is surprised; the qualifying phrase "as if" is necessary to maintain the established point of view, which is that of Rebecca. The point of view helps to put the emphasis on the theme of Rebecca's growth toward a deeper spiritual awareness.

The other noticeable element in the construction of the story is that it is told in the present tense, which means that the action is going on as the narrator speaks rather than having happened in the past which the narrator now is recalling. Present-tense narration is unusual, since much fiction is told in the past tense, although present-tense narration is a technique Orringer uses in a number of her stories. Writers sometimes believe that using the present tense gives a story an immediacy that it might otherwise not have, although what it may gain in immediacy is offset by a lack of perspective. The narrator of a present-tense narrative has no opportunity to look back on the events he or she is describing and assess their significance.