Summary

In the Introduction, the main character and narrator, Jake Epping, argued that he was not emotionally blocked just because he did not cry. His wife, Christy, had left him for a man she had met at an AA meeting. She called Jake's “nonexistent emotional gradient” (1) as the main reason she was divorcing him. He said he had cried as a child when he learned his dog had been hit by a truck. It had been his responsibility to see that the gate in the back yard was properly latched and Jake was not sure if he had checked it or not. As an adult, he cried when he learned his mother had died.

Jake worked as an English teacher. He also cried when he read Harry's true story, a janitor whose father murdered his mother and siblings. Harry's father had...