Blow, then a 20-year-old college student, receives a phone call from his cousin Chester who sexually abused him as a boy. He hasn’t heard from Chester in a very long time, but his voice triggers years of suppressed guilt and rage. Grabbing a .22 caliber pistol, Blow jumps in his car and heads for his mother’s house, intent on killing his abuser: “I was convinced that if I removed him from the world, the part of me that I despised would go with him” (3).

Blow’s first memory is the death of his great-grandmother—although, as a boy, he imagines the gathering is for a birthday celebration. When she passes away surrounded by her family, Blow is confused, thinking she’s searching for a gift that’s not there.

Growing up, Blow is relatively accustomed to death, attending more funerals than birthday parties. He is the youngest of five boys, and by the time he is born, his mother Billie is “dead-ass tired of working on a dead-end marriage and a dead-end job” (7). His father Spinner is a construction worker but also a pool hustler and a philanderer.

Blow grows up in Gibsland, Louisiana, “right in the middle of nowhere” (7).