On the Topic of There There...

What was most surprising to me about There There thus far was the complete tonal change between Tony's section and Dene's. Obviously, we've seen and discussed tonal shifts with a change in narrative perspective while reading Home Fire, but it was never as blatant and clear as in There There. Obviously there were tonal shifts in Opal's section and Edwin's, but those were closer to the changes in Home Fire.

The narrative perspective that introduced us to the story was that to Tony Loneman. From his diction and thoughts, we can get a good grasp of his personality: abrasive, moderately jaded, and slightly snarky. His mannerisms and statements are generally crude, owed to his harsh childhood experiences, but his character is pitiful in the sense that his struggles are relatable due to the glimpses of rationality and kindness we see, specifically with regards to Maxine. In fact, his devotion to Maxine is the reason that Tony relates with Octavio, and peddles drugs for him.

Then, we are introduced to Dene, whose thoughts and mannerisms are pretty standard. We see that he is adjusted to hostile environments, but is not nearly as jaded as Tony. In fact, the characters other than Tony are all fairly standard narrative styles.

What I'm trying to say is that we very rarely have abrasive characters as protagonists, so seeing one introduce the story of There There was fairly surprising. Not only that, but the quick shift to standard narrators was mild whiplash as far as tone was concerned, but there was still an undertone of misfortune in all the sections. It's just that Tony's section is the most raw, which fits his character as seen in the story thus far.