In the first chapters one can see the anguish and constraint that young Cohen has been raised under as well as the confusion and mixed emotions swirling through him when he is first to discover his father's dead body in the embalming room downstairs. What kind of life has this young man led, with his preacher father and strict, unsmiling mother? What mischief has he engaged in to find relief? And why does he need to step over his father's body, now on the embalming room floor?