Content Warning: This section of the guide contains incidents of alcohol and substance misuse, and references to post-traumatic stress disorder and death by suicide.

“Emmett is a large man of thirty-five with pimples on his face. He has been very quiet since they left Hopewell yesterday, probably because Mamaw is getting on his nerves. He has bad nerves.”

Sam worries throughout the book that Emmett's pimples—an uncommon condition in older adults—are the result of the chemical Agent Orange, which he might have been exposed to in the war. His “bad nerves” are the result of PTSD, though this isn’t initially clear. This brief but ominous introduction alludes to the many problems Emmett has without giving away too much information.

“She has never been this far away from home before. She is nearly eighteen years old and out to see the world.”

Sam has lived her whole life in Hopewell, Kentucky, and feels stifled by the smallness of the town and the narrowness of the people. Now she is on her way to Washington, DC to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and there is irony in the fact that her first time so far away is to visit something relating to death. It is only at the end of the book that it becomes clear this is a hopeful time of resolution for her.

“That is what the new feeling is like: you know something as well as you can and then you squeeze one layer deeper and something more is there.”

Sam has been seeking knowledge about her dead father and the Vietnam War, but she is frustrated by the lack of information she has found. This line refers to an experience depicted later in the book wherein Sam runs away to Cawood's Pond to recreate for herself what Vietnam might have been like.