Chapters 6, 7 and 8 Summary and Analysis

At the beginning of chapter six, the author describes the family's return to Florida, leaving the responsible and organized sixteen-year-old Alison in New York. The author then narrates his experiences under the hot, white, shapeless sun as he, Jean, the two-months pregnant Dagmar, and Tobey salvage still-usable wood from an abandoned army base. In first person present tense, he describes how, on a lunch break, he and Tobey adventure through the rest of the base, their dialogue for the first time including crudities like "shit" and "fuck".

The main part of the chapter is taken up with the author's description of a trip to a county fair with Tobey's family, a trip that begins with the author, as he describes it, leaving a quarreling Dagmar and Jean. At the fair, the author and Tobey have a great time on...