Book One, Joy to the World Summary

During this entire section, the author goes from February 1963 in Camas, where Kincaid and his father are watching a Roger Maris ball game before going on a promised fishing trip. Kincaid is the narrator and is anxiously awaiting the end of the game while respecting the solemn rituals of baseball. As the chapters progress, Kincaid reverts back to the present, the day when he and Hugh are going fishing, and the comments his father is making about the baseball game.

As Chapter One opens, Kincaid Chance, the narrator of most of this novel, is a young boy sitting on his father's lap while Hugh reads the sports pages and smokes Lucky Strikes. Kincaid is very young, but is struck by the correlation of his father's lit cigarette and the neighbor seen through the...