Nonlinear with a Multi-Perspective Twist
There are a couple of things we need to cover when we talk about style in The Returning. One important aspect of the novel's style is the way it takes into account each character's personal history. This is not to say that each character is a protagonist, or that we know each character equally—but we do get to see what Pin, Cam, Gyaar, Diido, and a whole slew of other characters make of their lives after the war. So while Cam may be our main man, we can't help but care a bit about other characters too.
Our experience of the story would be totally different if we were only following one person's point of view—we'd be missing out on a lot of key information, to say the least. And since part of what Hinwood does with this book is meditate on the ways in which war affects a community, this is best accomplished by seeing the experience from a variety of perspectives—those who fought, those who didn't, Uplanders, Downlanders, men, women, children… you get the idea.
The other crucial aspect of the novel's style is that the narrative is nonlinear, meaning that we experience the events out of order. We know at the beginning that Cam has returned from war with one arm—but we're not sure what happened to him at war, or why he was the only Downlander spared while fighting. And as we read further, we go back in time and meet the characters at different points in their lives, though we often already know what happens to them.
The novel doesn't just jump back in time once and then move sequentially into the present. Instead, we find ourselves moving over a large space of time, collecting the pieces of the puzzle as we go along. This helps us understand the trajectory of different characters' lives, and better understand how life has been for them before, during, and after the war.