Chapter 1 Summary

Mary Karr begins telling her life story with the most striking memory from her childhood. At the age of seven, she trembles on a bare mattress in her bedroom as the family doctor, Dr. Boudreaux, gently asks to see where she is hurt. She has no bruises, though the room is torn apart with furniture upended and emptied drawers. The local sheriff holds her sister, Lecia, who is pretending to be asleep. Eventually, Mary's daze clears up, and she realizes that the neighbors are outside watching her yard. Her parents are nowhere to be found. Her father Pete is working the graveyard shift at the oil refinery, and her mother Charlie has been taken away for being Nervous.

The concept of Nervousness weighs heavily on Mary. She knows that members of her family are prone to this state, but no one ever bothers...