Structure

The book’s core, essential structure is linear – that is, moving from a point of beginning (i.e. a key event in the author’s childhood), through a middle section (defined by chronological consideration of events and circumstances), and into an ending (i.e. a key event in the author’s adulthood that functions as a climax, or point of peak intensity). There is movement back and forth between past, present, and future, as the author considers the meaning of the first, its implications for the second, and ways to move into the third as a result of coming to deeper understanding of the first two.

The narrative begins with the author’s story of when he was 12 years old and, in a single event, experienced encounters with body issues, violence, and language that, in terms of the book as a whole, were foundational in the development...