Being Henry David

Seventeen-year-old Danny Henderson is the protagonist and first-person narrator of the novel. The novel’s central premise is Danny’s inability to remember who he is, what he’s experienced, and where he’s from—mysteries that drive the narrative.

After Danny wakes up in Penn Station with no sense of his past, he gives himself the name Henry David, after the author of Walden, and starts to redefine who he is according to this assumed identity. Danny’s experiences in New York City and Concord, Massachusetts, impinge on this new self, however, as the past breaks through in his mind. In New York, Danny is weighed down by a “dark nameless thing” (36). Danny uses these flashes of memories to contextualize his behavior: When he commits violent acts—even ones intended to protect new friends—he wonders if he’s a fundamentally bad person. When Danny attacks Simon near the dumpster in Chapter 3, for example, he is particularly unsettled by his capacity for anger and aggression. Therefore, his memory loss distorts his self-perception and his behavior throughout the novel.

Danny starts to remember his past after he finds a picture of himself in the missing and exploited children database at the Concord Public Library in Chapter 12.