Justin Torres's debut novel centers around three brothers who grow up in a world of imagination, neglect, and pain in an undisclosed upstate New York town. They fancy themselves alternately as the Three Musketeers; the Three Bears; the Three Stooges; Alvin and the Chipmunks; Frankenstein, the bride of Frankenstein, and the baby of Frankenstein; and even the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Children of a Puerto Rican father and white mother in a town populated by poor whites warned to avoid race mixing, these brothers are "half-breeds" with overworked, absent parents who rarely manage to provide the basics of food, safety, or companionship. Early on, the brothers learn to be wary of their father's rage and their mother's confusion, creating their own wild ways to play.