Jefferson Greene

Jeff is the novel's protagonist. The novel begins when Jeff is seven-and-a-half years old, and in the second grade, and ends when he is eighteen, and about to graduate from high school. Jeff's mother, Melody, leaves him at the novel's beginning, and he spends much of the novel trying to come to grips with his complicated feelings about her. Jeff has the height of his father, but has Melody's beautiful gray eyes. After Melody hurts him very badly by telling him she doesn't love him, Jeff draws inside himself and seeks absolute solitude. It is only when Jeff's father reaches out to him, and Jeff leans on another person, that Jeff begins to heal. Jeff loves playing the guitar and riding his boat in the bay, catching crabs. After Jeff comes out of his self-imposed solitude, he forges a relationship with his father and Brother Thomas, begins...