Summary

The novel begins in the year 1950, when the Korean War has just begun, 18-year-old Marcus Messner attends Robert Treat College in Newark. While in college, Marcus lives with his parents in the predominantly Jewish Weequahic neighborhood of Newark. Marcus’ father owns and operates a kosher butcher shop, where the primary employees are Marcus and his father. Marcus notices that his father has recently become highly neurotic and fearful of everything, although Marcus cannot comprehend the cause of such intense and generalized fear. Marcus’ father becomes extremely protective of Marcus and worries about him, despite the fact that Marcus has always been studious and well behaved. Marcus comments in narration, “Suddenly my father had no faith even in my ability to cross the street by myself” (9). After a year at Robert Treat, Marcus decides to transfer to a more distant college to escape his...