Chapter 1 Summary

Chapter 1 discusses the events surrounding Stingo's move from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Stingo is our narrator, who introduces himself to us first as a twenty-two year old Southerner who has moved to New York and is "struggling to become some kind of writer." (pg. 3) The nickname "Stingo" evolved from "Stinky," which is what the kids called him at prep school in Virginia. No one calls him Stingo anymore, but it was the name by which he was known in the late spring of 1947, when the events of this narration begin.

As a young, aspiring writer who left the South to make it big in New York, Stingo was initially thrilled to be working for the publishing firm of McGraw-Hill & Company. His job was to review manuscripts submitted by other aspiring authors. But Stingo found himself hating his nine-to-five job, and wrote scathing reviews of...