Jack Gladney, the narrator, is a 50-year-old professor at College-on-the-Hill, located in the fictional New England town of Blacksmith. Two decades earlier, Jack invented Hitler studies. He is now the chairman of the school’s Hitler studies department and is an academic celebrity for having done so. In the first chapter, he observes the annual ritual of station wagons dropping off incoming students for the fall semester, likening it to a spiritual act shared among the affluent of America.

Jack introduces the members of his blended family. His fourth and current wife is named Babette. Together, Jack and Babette raise four children, all from previous marriages. Jack’s children are 14-year-old Heinrich and nine-year-old Steffie, each from different marriages. Jack has one more daughter, 12-year-old Bee, who lives with her mother, Tweedy Browner.

Babette’s children are 11-year-old Denise and two-year-old Wilder, also from separate marriages. Babette has one more son, Eugene, who lives with his and Wilder’s unnamed father.

Jack introduces his closest friend, Murray Jay Suskind. An ex-sportswriter and New York expatriate, Murray works in the popular culture department and wants to build a new field of academic study around Elvis Presley, much like Jack has done with Adolf