H is for Hawk: Style 1 key example

This passage's details would almost make it at home in a scientist or naturalist's field journal. The book is a repository of tiny observations about experimental procedures and hawk behavior, down to Mabel's toe-nibbling and "precise and tiny bites of water." At the same time, the passage is full of imagery that betrays emotion. The bright morning sunshine floods the room with hope that the two of them will get along. Macdonald clearly enjoys watching Mabel in the light. Hope is soon dashed when Macdonald tries and fails to hood Mabel, blocking out the light. If Macdonald is a sort of scientist or naturalist, they are not one who ascribes to objective distance. Their emotions are always informing the way they perceive what is in front of them. 

Here and many other places in the book, Macdonald shifts verb tenses within the same passage. They initially "opened" the curtains (past tense), but soon Mabel is "standing in a shallow bath" (present tense). Macdonald's mixed verb tenses are almost certainly deliberate. They convey a sense of disorientation in time. Macdonald can lose themself in a memory of Mabel or of their father, and suddenly something that happened in the past is happening right now. In this way, the book offers the reader not only a description but also a taste of the way grief twisted Macdonald's timeline in on itself.