Summary

The novel starts out discussing Rocky’s feelings about his father, Punch. He was a tough man and beat people including Rocky’s mother. His mother was a stoic woman. Rocky wonders why he is thinking about his father at this moment. Rocky considers agents of recall, situations that can trigger memories. These include scent and music. Rocky considers himself a man of science, and he is a fan of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Just like Thoreau who built a house in the wilderness around Walden Pond, Rocky also has built a house in the wilderness, but he built his for a woman.

Rocky remembers the night his wife died. He went outside walking, and he found a footprint of hers in the ground. He considered making a cast of it. He...