Chapter 1 Summary

The Grass Harp is a story told by Collin Fenwick, an orphan whose life spent with eccentric relatives enriches him more than he could ever have imagined. Collin is especially close to his aunt Dolly, a gentle soul whose only act of rebellion occurs one autumn when she removes herself and a few others to live in a tree house in a sprawling tree on the outskirts of a small Southern town. The episode teaches lessons of love and life for those who inhabit the tree house as well as those who try to extricate the rebels from their firm positions.

As the novel begins, the narrator, Collin Fenwick, describes the landscape of River Woods, on the outskirts of the rural Alabama town where he lives. The wooded area is the site of the China tree that sits near a field of tall...