Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
First Person (Peripheral Narrator)
Although The Spirit Catches You uses a standard first-person narrator, it's a bit more complicated than you're average narrative setup. Sometimes Anne Fadiman is detached from the story and exclusively giving information; at other points she becomes an active participant in the proceedings. Not what you'd expect out of Dickens or his traditionally narrating compatriots.
Fadiman keeps to herself for the most part, though. When she describes the history of the Hmong or investigates the hospital's handling of Lia's case, she tends to stay in the background, functioning more or less like a third-person narrator.
But then it happens: the chronology of the story runs smack-dab into the moment that Fadiman meets the Lees. From that point on, we get tiny—like super tiny—glimpses into Fadiman's personal experiences with the family. Not because she wants the story to be about her, but because this lets her shed new light on Nao Kao and Foua.
By placing herself within the narrative without taking the focus off her subjects, Fadiman charts a new route into the Lees' lives, with herself as a guidepost. It's like being a character and a narrator and a literary device all wrapped up in one. That's a lot of lines on the resumé.