David

David is a child who is relocated to the Penobscot reservation in Maine by his mother, Mom, at a young age. He lives in a small house with Mom, his sister Paige, and Mom’s boyfriend Frick. Although David ages over the course of the collection, it holds true that his perspective is firmly that of a child’s, and sometimes lacks the perception that an adult narrator might have.

When he is young, David is an extremely innocent boy and has a difficult time adapting to life on the reservation. His father, whom he calls Dad, was a worker at a casino in the southern part of the United States, and David’s early childhood seems informed by his experience living in a more commercialized world; he is initially very interested in action figures and other plastic toys, and he reacts poorly when Frick attempts to take...