It wasn't until they'd been together almost a year that he told her about the accident at Dalkey Quarry. To her it sounded like the kind of drunken disaster so typical of the lives of teenage boys, but for Howard, it became clear, everything that happened before and after was cast in its light.
-- Howard Fallon (Page 1 - Page 132)

Importance: This quote reveals the fundamental disconnect between Howard's internal experience and how others perceive his defining trauma. Halley's dismissive characterization of the Dalkey Quarry incident as merely a "drunken disaster so typical of the lives of teenage boys" demonstrates the isolation that accompanies profound guilt and shame—she cannot comprehend that what appears mundane from the outside has become the organizing principle of Howard's entire identity. The phrase "everything that happened before and after was cast in its light" suggests that Howard experiences his life as a bifurcated narrative: the person he was before his cowardice...