“This is how I lost David.”

The novel’s Prologue establishes Marcie Bowers as the protagonist and primary narrator. Her declaration, which directly addresses the reader, foreshadows the narrative’s events, intimating that her husband, David Bowers, does not survive the story.

“‘Why you own a pub is beyond me,’ I say, as I often do. He’d be a perfect math teacher—the enthusiasm, cornball humor, wicked knowledge—or a perfect financial whiz, playing the market and inventing algorithms. But since the day when, eight months after I met him, he saw that vacant property located four blocks off the interstate and decided to open a pub—Hemingway’s Pub, natch—it’s all he’s done.”

Marcie’s account of her husband’s quirks and attributes unwittingly offers clues to suspicious aspects of David’s character. David’s wasted potential is emphasized by Marcie’s description of him as a “financial whiz,” hinting at his former identity as an accountant. Meanwhile, his enthusiasm for opening a pub stems from his need for a suitable business to launder stolen money. Marcie’s lighthearted tone throughout indicates her lack of suspicion at this point in the narrative, highlighting The Role of Trust and Deception in Relationships.

“QUESTION: Why does a woman who graduates summa cum laude from one of the best law schools in the country, then lands a job at one of the top law firms in Chicago, come back to Hemingway freakin’ Grove to live and practice small-town family law?”

Tommy Malone’s rhetorical question about Marcie delves into The Impact of the Past on the Present. Marcie’s return to her hometown of Hemingway Grove is portrayed as a retreat from the corruption she encountered on both sides of the legal system while working as a criminal defense attorney in Chicago. The question is also ironic, as Tommy is Silas Renfrow, the former client who prompted Marcie’s dramatic lifestyle change.