In the prologue, the narrator, David Hayden, explains a few things: how old he was when the story took place, how old he is now, and what has happened since. List this information, and then speculate: why, perhaps, is he telling the story now?

In the prologue David is a man reflecting on “summer of his twelfth year” in 1948 . Much like the character of Scout in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, David is able to reflect using the voice of both a child and adult. This gives the narrative different dimensions even though it is written in first-person. We can appreciate the story and characters both in a resent sense as well as adult hindsight.