Part One: Chapters 1 & 2 Summary

The Queen of Palmyra opens with the line, "I need you to understand how ordinary it all was." The narrator, ten-year-old Florence Forrest, recounts the late-night phone calls her father, a burial insurance salesman, receives and how he calls for her to go into the basement and fetch his mysterious box, the contents of which wouldn't be revealed to her until later in the summer. The box had been handed down to Win Forrest from his father, and his father before that. Every time that phone call comes, Mama huffs and puffs around the house, throwing cake pans into the sink and slamming doors. Once, Mama dared to push the hated box off the table and Daddy rounded on her, threatening to snap her thin arm in his bear-like fist. Florence spends a lot of time at home because...