Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of racism, death, bullying, and sexual content.

When Diamond’s father, Pop, goes missing after leaving his house and family on July 1, 1980, the only clue he leaves behind are his sneakers, found on the banks of the Swift River where the family used to swim. Men drag the river looking for Pop’s body but do not find any sign of him, even when they expand their search to the surrounding area.

Diamond starts fourth grade that fall. She is the only Black person in the school, and now, with her father missing, the only Black person in the entire town of Swift River. The students are reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and “call [her] dad ‘N***** Jim’ because: he’s Black, he’s somewhere in a river, and he has no shoes” (2). Stories about what happened to her father, including Diamond’s and her mother’s (“Ma”) potential role in his disappearance, proliferate.

The narrative jumps back to a time before her father’s disappearance, when Ma, Pop, and Diamond were taking a drive in their Volkswagen Beetle, which had a hole in the floor. Pop joked about leaving and never returning, but Ma did not laugh.