Hiram Hillburn

Hiram Hillburn is the protaganist and the narrator of the novel. He is first introduced as a 7-year-old boy living with his grandparents in Greenwood Mississippi as his parents are in Oxford. Hiram and Grampa have a special relationship while living with him and they do everything together. Grampa wants to raise him and instill in him the ways of the old South, much to his father's dismay. After the death of his grandmother, Hiram's father announces that the family is leaving for Tempe, Arizona, Hiram is extremely upset because he is being taken away from everything he has ever known and loved. Over the next seven years living in Tempe, Hiram's relationship with his father becomes more estranged as the two argue over going back to Greenwood. Hiram is determined to go back to what he considers his home, but his father is adamant that the...