I have been unhappy for many years now.
I have seen in the faces of young people walking down the street a resemblance to people who died during my childhood.
The novel opens with these words. And this decision tells the reader quite a bit right off the bat. For one thing, the first-person perspective informs us that this is going to be a story where we get just one side: the teller of the tale. That very first line also indicates that the tale is not exactly going to be the runaway uplifting feel-good story of the decade. People who begin their story by telling you they’ve been unhappy for years generally are not going to lead into a fairy tale type narrative. It is that second line, however, that holds the buried treasure. A whole heck of a lot is given away in that line and it has to do with the fact that it foreshadows how this unhappy story is going to be about a group of people with a commonality of physicality. They look alike, to some extent, in other words. And we all know what happens to people who look alike when they intermingle with a more powerful group who do not look like them.
When she finished and stood I noticed how peculiarly innocent she appeared in her skirt, with a slim waist and broad hips. This is mostly how I remember her: pure in Indian blood, lovely, dressed in the late day sky. How well she knew this. And I was a young boy staring at her.
The novel is a recollection of events which occurred in the past, something else which can be gleaned from the opening lines. The dramatic conflict at the heart of the story revolves around the relationship between the narrator and a young woman named Rosemary Blackwell. Rosemary is just a teenager chronologically speaking at the time being recollection, but she has experienced a life well deserving of situating her as something more womanly than girlish. By the third sentence of the book, the reader already knows the full extent of the tragedy of Rosemary as the narrator recalls that she died in front of him. The exact circumstances of that moment remain a mystery, however, and the narrative is to a great extent a recounting of the events leading to those circumstances which includes important moments in the narrator’s live such as that quoted above.
I stood quiet in the entryway. The walls were white and covered with framed pictures and paintings. The floor was hardwood with only a single rug near the window across the room. The two boys played their game quietly. Near the kitchen I saw a girl sitting on the floor with her head down. She was so silent I almost didn’t see her. She might’ve been praying. She never looked up, never even moved. Maybe she was sleeping. Her hair was long and straight and hung down in front, so I wasn’t able to see her face. I heard Jack’s dog barking from another room.
There is a sense of menace in the description of this scene that seems to foreshadowing something really awful about to happen any minute. The scene takes place in the home of a very shady character named Jack and the narrator only sticks around a little bit longer before taking off so fast that before he knows it he is out of breath. The entire sequences with Jack leading to his escape is fraught with understated menace which implies that life for characters like the narrator and the girl in the kitchen and a small group of other underage boys who really probably shouldn’t be there in Jack’s house is just all part of the standard tapestry of life. The total sum of possible near-tragedies with which they come in contact likely extends far beyond their immature ability to grasp the potential danger.
