Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, sexual abuse, incest, death by suicide, misogyny, infertility, pregnancy loss, and mental health conditions.

Ginny Cook Smith, the novel’s protagonist, describes her father’s farm in Zebulon County, Iowa. While it may take only a minute to drive past it on the highway, the farm is the center of her family’s world.

Ginny admits that in Zebulon County everyone knows how much acreage, money, and debts everyone has. She reflects on her childhood and remembers a time in 1951 when her father bought a car right after her youngest sister Caroline was born. Despite high gas prices, the family often took car rides, and she finds herself nostalgic for these car rides and her parents’ laidback and confident conversations as they drove around the countryside.

After being gone for 13 years, Jess Clark, a neighbor and family friend, returns home to his father, Harold, and brother, Loren. Everyone in town is curious about what Jess has been up to, so Harold throws a pig roast to celebrate his son’s homecoming. Ginny is especially excited to see how Jess navigates discovering everything everyone has been saying about him for the last 13 years.