The story takes place in Upstate New York during the 1970s. 14-year-old Joe Henry has spent his life in an abusive household. His father, Bob, is a raging, violent alcoholic, while his mother, Theresa, feels too stressed to pay attention to him and lives in fear of getting caught in the path of her husband's wrath. His brother, about a year older, is normal and friendly, but offers no affirmative guidance. He mostly ignores Joe as he does not want the association of Joe's natural uncoolness ruining his attempts to get into the "in" crowd. Joe is taunted by his classmates, and hassled by people his father owes money to. To make matters worse, one night Bob goes off the deep end and smashes all of Theresa's records. When Joe comes home from work to discover this, Henry tells him Bob was triggered by finding condoms in Theresa's purse, implying she secretly works as a prostitute to bring in whatever additional income she can for the family, which would also explain her absence from the house the majority of the day.
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