Christopher Castellani’s three novels about Italian immigrants have attracted wide praise and as artistic director he is a guiding light at Grub Street writing center in Boston. Now he comes along with “The Art of Perspective: Who Tells the Story’’ (Graywolf). Through his analysis of the work of writers such as E.M. Forster, Grace Paley, and the late Sudanese novelist Tayeb Salih, it offers a master class — in 140 pages — on how various narrative strategies make novels tick. Castellani knows how to hook a reader. His description of a hair-raising encounter he had leaves one eager to see what he may do with it in his own fiction. JAN GARDNER