Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
First Person (Central Narrator) and Third Person (Limited Omniscient)
The Bean Trees uses two forms of narration, but merges them in striking and unusual ways.
The first and most easily identifiable of the novel's narrators is Taylor Greer herself. As a first- person central narrator, Taylor tells her own story throughout most of the novel. Take a look at her masterful opening lines:
"I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. I'm not lying. He got stuck up there." (1.1)
All but two of the novel's chapters are narrated through Taylor's first-person perspective. However, in Chapter Two and Chapter Four, a slightly different form of narration takes over.
At first glance, this narration seems to be third-person limited omniscient. The narrator seems relatively uninvolved in the action being described, and has enough "omniscient" power to relay the thoughts and feelings of one or two characters—in this case, Lou Ann Ruiz. For example, this narrator tells us:
"Lou Ann Ruiz lived in Tucson, but thought of herself as just an ordinary Kentuckian a long way from home. She had acquired her foreign last name from her husband, Angel. As it turned out, this was the only part of him that would remain with her. He left on Halloween." (2.1)
Now, although Chapter Two and Chapter Four are told in a style that we typically associate with a third-person limited omniscient narrator, the oddness of these two chapters forces us to ask: why would just fifteen chapters in The Bean Trees be narrated by Taylor herself, who speaks from an unspecified point in the future, leaving two chapters to be told by an undisclosed "someone else"?
The likely answer is that the undisclosed "someone else" of Chapter Two and Chapter Four is actually Taylor herself, who for whatever reason has chosen to spend two chapters telling some of Lou Ann's story instead of her own.
This would mean that although Taylor narrates these chapters as though she is a third-person limited omniscient narrator, since she herself is a fictional character in this novel we can also think of these chapters as being told from the perspective of a first-person peripheral narrator: someone who is intimately acquainted with the protagonist—who in these chapters is Lou Ann—and who is trying to relate Lou Ann's experiences as faithfully as possible.
Sound confusing? Don't worry: the story comes through clearly any which way you slice it.