3. The fact that all of the stories/poems in “Sweethearts” are first person and are all written from the point of view of a young woman are just two good reasons to assume it is the same woman throughout the first half of the book. In addition, none of the stories in the first half contradict incidents in other stories/poems in the section. Finally, most of the tales bear resemblances to portions of Machine Dreams, Phillips’s family epic set in West Virginia between World War Two and the Vietnam War. “Slaves,” on the other hand, includes only two first-person accounts among its ten stories/poems. In addition, almost every one of the eight accounts in the third person seems to contradict certain facts given in other stories, leading me to believe the protagonists of these particular tales/poems are indeed different characters.