Jackie is seven years old, a first-person narrator essentially without a filter. He has a child’s perception of his world: what he likes and does not like define his worldview, at least until his first confession when he learns the world is a far subtler place.

He does not like his grandmother, who has intruded in their home with her unsophisticated country ways. He sees his family as two teams, the ones who tolerate Gran (his father and his sister) and those who do not (he and his mother). He does not respond to nuance—hence his catechism teacher’s vision of hell as a place for bad people seems sensible to him. He understands the Catholic cosmos comprising angels and devils, heaven and hell. As he approaches the confessional, he is sure that he is a thorough sinner, the priest is his avowed enemy, and hell will be the inevitable punishment.

The priest upends Jackie’s simplistic worldview and introduces him to contradictions, surprises, and irony, none of which had been part of his education so far. The priest surprises Jackie by telling him that thinking about killing people is fairly common, although acting on that impulse is both rare and bad.