Part 1, Chapter 1 - Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary

Part 1, Chapter 1 - David "Lizard" Hochmeyer likes to eat every single meal as if it is his last meal, for his parents are killed after a meal. Lizard's sister, Katy, is encouraged to play tennis by their mother, Barbara, while Lizard is encouraged to do gardening rather than football. Lizard and Katy's father, Nick, works in the corporate world, and the family takes trips to lakeside Michigan. As they go into high school, Katy becomes a stoner, and Lizard makes pipes for her. It is the 1960s.

The family lives in a stone house across a pond from a rich neighborhood in Westport, Connecticut, where High Side is located. High Side is the size of a mansion. In the mansion lives Sylphide, a world-famous Norwegian ballerina, and widow of the English rocker Dabney Stryker-Stewart, who...