The story begins with Aunt Mae, a former actress and singer, moving in with David's white-working-class family in the middle of a small southern town. Aunt Mae becomes sexually involved with a seventy-year-old man, ending when he is arrested on morality charges. From subsequent events David learns he does not get along with the other boys his own age. At this point, suggestive of the 1930s Depression, David's father, Frank, loses his factory job. The family moves to an older house on a hill overlooking the town.