Summary

Part I begins with the narrator, who is later revealed to be named Jaxie Clackton, a teenager in Western Australia, driving fast along an isolated highway. He reflects that if he called anyone from his past right now, they would be frightened to hear from him, but he doesn’t care about that now because he is happy with his vision for the future. He feels he knows what he wants to do and he has everything he needs to do it. He says things were not always this way.

Jaxie recounts the day his old life ended. Jaxie lived in an isolated rural town called Monkton. Jaxie’s mom had died several months earlier. Jaxie now lived alone with his drunk and abusive dad, known in their hometown as The Captain, Cap for short, although Jaxie refers to him throughout with the...