Summary

The novel begins with a prologue that takes place after many of the coming chapters.

The chapter opens with 17-year-old Eddie Hardison driving a stolen Subaru, using his newly handless arms. The reader is told that he was fleeing some sort of farm. He drove to Houston, to seek a childhood friend named Mrs. Vernon, but found that her bakery was boarded up. He then attempted to find his Aunt Berthella (whom he had not seen in roughly five years, and readers are told that she had a rocky relationship with Eddie’s mother). It became apparent to Eddie that she no longer lived in Houston, and a neighbor told Eddie that she moved to St. Cloud, Minnesota. When he reached St. Cloud, Eddie ate at a diner, met a waitress named Sandy, and looked to the television, where he saw that...