The novel opens with a brief anecdote about Newt Harbine's father exploding a tractor tire by over inflating it. He is thrown on top of the service station sign. Mr. Harbine is not killed, but he is never the same. The Harbine family is poor and prolific. The parents do not value education and Newt leaves school, marries Jolene Shanks because she is pregnant, and toils beside his father in the tobacco fields. (read more)