In 1973, 10-year-old Jonathan Rosen and his family move to Mereland Road in New Rochelle, New York. Jonathan’s parents choose the area for its good schools and thriving middle-class Jewish community. Robert Rosen is a professor of German literature, while his wife, Norma, is a novelist.

Jonathan becomes best friends with his neighbor, Michael Laudor. The same age as Jonathan, Michael is also the son of a professor. Both boys are bookish and want to be writers. However, Michael is precociously confident, while Jonathan is shy and anxious.

On Biography Day in fifth grade, Jonathan dresses as Nathaniel Hawthorne and is overcome with anxiety. Meanwhile, Michael gives a confident performance as Franklin D. Roosevelt. Jonathan is a slow reader, and his factual recall is poor. By contrast, Michael has a photographic memory and can read several books simultaneously. He describes plots so engagingly that Jonathan feels as if he has read the books himself. Michael describes how the character Piggy is killed by a boulder in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. He explains that after his death, “the red stuff” left on the rock is Piggy’s brains.

One day a teenager on a dirt bike drives directly at Jonathan and his friends.