Why do you think the author chose to use the present tense for Claire and past tense for Wesley? How did it affect your reading of the book?

As the novel switches perspectives between Wesley and Claire, the tense also changes: Claire's accounts are in the present tense, while Wesley's are in the past tense. Why do you think the author chose this approach? How did it affect your reading of the book?

I have to say that I did not even notice the switch in tenses....well, maybe, unconsciously. I think the effect was to separate Claire and let her stand aside; at least once the reader recognized that she was dead.

I really had not noticed the difference in tenses that Claire's death was told versus the rest of the story. Perhaps it was to set her death as the end of that part of Wesley and Dennis' lives, and moved forward with new beginnings for both of them.

I guess I didn't really notice the transition. For me it was a little strange the first time when Claire told a portion of her story. After her death, I didn't really expect her to be as much a part of the story as she was. But maybe it needed to be that way for us to understand the choices she made in regard to her husband and her son.