Summary

In the opening lines of Jayson Greene’s memoir, the author addresses his two-year -old daughter, Greta, asking her where to begin their story: “Where should we start, sweetie?” (3). In first person, direct address, he recalls a trip he took with Greta to the beach on Coney Island, near their home in New York City. He remembers how immense the ocean was compared to the smallness of his child, and the way she boldly ventured up to the water, undaunted by the ocean.

Greene then shifts from this tender moment of speaking directly to his daughter and bluntly recalls the accident that haunts the rest of his narrative: one afternoon on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where Greta sits on a bench with her grandmother Susan, a loose brick crumbles from a windowsill eight stories above, striking Greta on...