The narrator, Ruth Grey, invites the reader into her town of Honey Creek, Illinois, where she lives with her mother (whom she calls “May”). Honey Creek is a town close to the border of Wisconsin (where Ruth has never been), full of clapboard houses, small schools, a cinder block factory, and river with a mill that no longer operates. Ruth is a well-meaning young girl who acknowledges her developmental disabilities. Her father, Elmer, left the family to live with his brother in Texas when she was only 10 years old. Ruth’s simple life experiences include watching a local cowhand as he shepherds his cows down the road and playing make-believe games with her hens. Her happiest childhood memory took place on the hottest day of the year, when melted ice cream splashed onto her head and her entire family—including her father, Elmer, her mother, May, and her brother, Matt—laughed and treated her like a celebrity. Ruth understands from the faces of families emerging from Sunday church services that sometimes everyone is this happy.

Ruth recounts her learning difficulties as a child, which are thrown into high relief by her brother, Matt, whose precocious abilities (particularly in math) were recognized even from a young age.