The narrator is a lightly fictionalized representation of author William Maxwell. The fact that he’s never named contributes to the association of character and writer. Physical and personality descriptions also align. As a boy, the narrator is thin, quiet, and studious. He prefers the company of a book over rambunctious schoolmates. He is an emotional and sensitive child who is keenly alert to his father’s opinions of him. He is teased and bullied by older boys at school but is more hurt by a seemingly friendly boy who calls him a “sissy” under his breath.

The easy friendship the narrator forms with Cletus is much different than his relationships with other children. Cletus likes to play games the narrator suggests and doesn’t tease him for saying things other boys would laugh at. Though he doesn’t know it at the time, both boys have experienced loss and family disruptions. They meet daily in the scaffolding of an unfinished home, a symbol of families in transition.

As a grown man, the narrator spends time in therapy revisiting the traumatic experience of his mother’s early death, which still upsets him to the point of tears, underscoring Family Instability and Its Effect on Children, which can be profound and enduring.