A belligerent, arrogant, and intelligent man, Lyman is the narrator and principal point of view for the novel's past and present timelines. Like his grandfather Oliver before him, Lyman is predisposed to drinking alcohol in difficult moments. The reason why he picks up the story of his grandparents’ life is because he notices how much it mirrors his own. Lyman’s wife, Ellen, left him, and he believes that she committed adultery; Lyman knows that his grandparents went through a similar (though obscure) event in their lives but reunited and spent many decades together.

By researching their lives (under the pretension of writing a history book), Lyman is trying to find salvation for himself. He hopes to understand how to forgive Ellen for what she did, hoping that his grandparents’ experiences inform his own. That he should chose to write a book is indicative of his academic history: This is the medium through which he can understand people. As a historian, he approaches the subject from a historian’s perspective. Soon enough, however, he realizes that he cannot only deal in objective fact—he must begin speculating and moving beyond his comfort zone to find his answers.