During the summer when Carson McCullers’ novel takes place, twelve-year-old Frankie Addams goes through several transformations. She begins the summer as Frankie, but soon decides that she will change her name to F. Jasmine Adams. Later that year, she begins using her actual first name, Frances. These transformations accompany changes of status in her family and in their place of residence. Frankie lives with her father in a small Georgia town; her mother died when she was born. The period is World War II, and her brother Jarvis, who is in the military, comes home to get married. The action takes place primarily in and around her family home, and in a downtown café, the Blue Moon. By the novel’s end, the reader learns that Frances is moving with her father to the city to live with relatives and that he is selling the house.