The Year We Disappeared employs a dual narrative strategy. Co-authors John and Cylin Busby recount the same events from different perspectives. John’s narrative voice is dispassionate, almost clinical. He focuses on the details of the crime and his recovery: the caliber of ammunition used, the color and make of the car that ambushed him, the tubes used to keep him alive. Later, at home, he describes in an almost detached manner the painstaking procedure of feeding himself. It might be a coping mechanism to avoid reliving the trauma; or it might simply be John clinging to his identity as a macho, indestructible man who reveals no emotion. The few glimpses he provides into his emotional state are primarily anger, one of the few emotions that stereotypically strong men are “allowed” to show.

Cylin’s voice, on the other hand, reveals vulnerability, confusion, and fear. Like any typical nine-year-old, she cannot comprehend the idea that someone wants to kill her father, and so she goes through a period of denial. Once the security detail becomes a routine part of the family’s lives, however, she becomes angry at the disruption and saddened by the loss of her friends.