The prologue describes the narrator’s memories of the summer he was twelve years old. These take the form of a series of images, including a very sick young Sioux woman, his father on his knees begging his mother to help him, and his mother loading a shotgun and preparing to use it. He also mentions the sound of breaking glass and the smell of rotting vegetables.

All of these memories are mixed together in David’s mind without a clear chronology: “Imagine instead a movie screen divided into boxes or panels, each with its own scene, so that one moment can occur simultaneously with another, . . . so nothing happens before or after, only during” (Prologue, xvi).