Okay so for starters, the author wrote himself into this story as a character named Willie. Willie is the one telling the whole story. The foreward is in first person.

Basically, in this foreward we get seven pages that have more exposition than a Karen Kingsbury novel. "So-and-so attends a community college." I don't care when Karen Kingsbury gives me sentences like this. And I don't care now.

We learn about this dude Mack and his family. I love the name Mack. That's currently all I care about.

Mack has five kids and an abusive father. Knowing the plot of this book already, I'm pretty sure nothing else is important.