Trevor Noah is the central character and author. His memoir is not strictly chronological­ and often jumps between early childhood and adult memories, with the regular intervention of Noah’s contemporary authorial voice and analysis. However, the stories follow a rough chronology, beginning when Noah is five, progressing through his late childhood and teens, and ending in his early 20s.

As a child, Noah is “naughty” and a “terror” (145). He enjoys questioning authority on the basis of what he sees as sound, logical thinking. His curiosity often gets him in trouble. For instance, at age three, he burrows under the fence of his grandmother’s yard in Soweto and runs through the neighborhood. Though Noah doesn’t know it, this is extremely dangerous: If the police or an informant had seen him, they would have immediately taken him to an orphanage. In another anecdote, he shows a childhood friend how to light a fire with a sunbeam and a magnifying class, then forgets his fire-making materials in the sun, inadvertently starting a fire that burns down a white family’s home.

Noah maintains these characteristics into his teenage years, running a black-market CD-burning business that grows into a reselling business in his late teens and 20s.