Joey Pigza is the protagonist and narrator of his own story. Inferences within the text indicate that he is about 10 years of age. When the reader first meets Joey, he describes a typically difficult school day when the medication prescribed to control his hyperactivity becomes less effective during the afternoon, leading to his being sent to the principal’s office to discuss his “behavior goals” (6). Joey is a kindhearted child who suffers because of what appears to be a biochemically based inability to control his impulsive behavior. While the specific nature of his challenge is never named, it appears that he suffers from some form of ADHD.

Joey advises the reader that he lives with his paternal grandmother; she has told him that she, his father, and Joey are all “wired wrong,” and that his tendencies are genetic. Joey’s father, Carter Pigza, left the family home when the boy was in kindergarten; his mother, Fran, followed him. While it appears that his grandmother makes efforts to care for the boy in the wake of his parental abandonment, she suffers from her bouts of mania and impulsivity. Additionally, she seeks to control Joey’s behavior by pretending to talk to the mother, whom he misses so much, by phone, telling the boy that his mother cannot come home because he has not behaved properly.