How does the author describe the setting?

There is life and there is death, In life, Peter lives in an average middle-class home, but he attends a school that has programs for eleven and twelve-year-olds that many other schools would lack, such as art classes, after-school sports, and letter jackets for athletes. Even so, the homework and tests are common ones. At home, Peter's artistic interests grate on his father, who works as a printer, and his mother, who has a practical attitude acquired from her upbringing on a farm. The parents' irritation with their whiny son and Peter's belief that they just do not understand him may be found in many families and among many children.

Death is uncomfortable for Peter: "I missed everything. I even missed stupid ordinary things I'd never thought about, like the taste of toothpaste. I wanted my teeth back, I wanted my body back, I wanted my life back," says Peter. Bodiless, Peter is nonetheless able to hear what people say about him during his funeral, how his death was his own fault for acting without thinking. There is also a disembodied voice that tells him that he has a chance to fix his life, to change so that he does not die. Peter is not good at paying attention, and he dies twice more before actually paying attention to what the voice tells him. Yet, Peter is no quitter. Instead of giving up and journeying up the light that he is in after he dies, he struggles with himself, learning that in life he must think about the needs of others as well as about his own desires if he is to be happy.