“I close my eyes and the years begin to move in reverse, slowly ticking backward, like the hands of a clock rotating in the wrong direction. As if through someone else’s eyes, I watch myself grow younger; I see my hair changing from gray to brown […] Lessons I’ve learned with age grow dimmer, and my innocence returns as that eventful year approaches.”

This citation illustrates the first-person narrator’s journey back to his 17-year-old self in 1958. Sparks utilizes the surreal trope of reverse-aging to guide the reader out of middle-aged Landon’s perspective to show how much he’s matured from his younger self.

“This is my story; I promise to leave nothing out. First you will smile, and then you will cry - don’t say you haven’t been warned.”

Sparks sets up the expectation that Landon’s story will be a moving one, promising both delight and extreme sadness. This encourages a sense of poignancy, even in the first creative chapters when the outcome isn’t yet revealed.

“In 1958, Beaufort, North Carolina, which is located on the coast near Morehead City, was a place like many other small southern towns. It was the kind of place where the humidity rose so high in the summer that walking out to get the mail made a person feel as he needed the shower, and kids walked around barefoot from April through October beneath oak trees draped in Spanish moss.”

Sparks sets up the picturesque Southern beach-town scene of his novel, which, following the earlier success of his 1996 novel, The Notebook, has become part of his brand. Spanish moss and high humidity are classic features of the American South, while the presence of barefoot children sets up the image of safety, security and innocence.