Summary

Chapter 1 is titled “Dill.” Dillard Early, Jr. (known throughout this guide as Dill) is dressed to go on a road trip with his best friends, Lydia Blankenship and Travis Bohannon. Dill tells his mother the three are going to Nashville to shop for school clothes as he silently begs her not to ask the next question he knows she will ask. She does ask if he is going to visit his father, Dillard Early, Sr. (known throughout this guide as Dillard Sr.), who is serving time in Riverbend Prison. Dill assures his mother that he is only spending money he earned in tips from his job at Floyd's Grocery. Dill's father was the pastor of the Church of Christ's Disciples with Signs of Belief, a church where the congregants passed around poisonous snakes. People thought that was strange, but, apparently, no laws being...