Cunningham's novel also mirrors "Mrs. Dalloway's" stream-of-consciousness narrative style (a style pioneered by Woolf and James Joyce) in which the flowing thoughts and perceptions of protagonists are depicted as they would occur in real life, unfiltered, flitting from one thing to another, and often rather unpredictable. In terms of time, this means characters interact not only with the present, but also memories; this contextualizes personal history and backstory, which otherwise might appear quite trivial—buying flowers, baking a cake and such things.