The year is 1956. Keenly aware of his impending death, John Ames begins writing a letter to his six-year-old son. He opens his letter by explaining that he will soon be with the Good Lord. He regrets that he will not be present for most of his son’s life and that he does not have much to leave his family except his treasured books and boxes of old sermons.

John is writing his son’s “begats” (9), sharing memories of his childhood and family that are interspersed with his present-day observations. On a visit to his ailing childhood friend, the widowed Presbyterian preacher Robert Boughton, Glory, Boughton’s daughter, announces that her brother Jack will soon be home. John appreciates the warning.

John was born in Kansas in 1880 but spent most of his life in Gilead, Iowa. He shares the same name—John Ames—as his father and grandfather, and the same vocation as a preacher. He was married previously to a girl named Louisa who died in childbirth with their daughter, Angeline. John spent a long, lonely time before meeting his second wife, Lila, the mother of his son. He recalls seeing Lila for the first time and later baptizing her, a ritual that holds great significance to him.