How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Now a traveler must make his way to Noon City by the best means he can, for there are no buses or trains heading in that direction, though six days a week a truck from the Chuberry Turpentine Company collects mail and supplies in the next-door town of Paradise Chapel: occasionally a person bound for Noon City can catch a ride with the driver of the truck, Sam Radclif. (1.1.1)
Talk about the middle of nowhere. The narrator gets really chatty with us in the beginning of the novel, using the present tense. It's as though Noon City, out there in the disconnected countryside, is still just like it was in the novel. That timelessness can be isolating.
Quote #2
Two roads pass over the hinterlands into Noon City; one from the north, another from the south; the latter, known as the Paradise Chapel Highway, is the better of the pair, though both are much the same: desolate miles of swamp and field and forest stretch along either route, unbroken except for scattered signs advertising Red Dot 5 ¢ Cigars, Dr. Pepper, NEHI, Grove's Chill Tonic, and 666. (1.1.2)
The vocabulary of the description makes us feel lonely just reading it: "hinterlands", "desolate", "unbroken"—the idea that Joel is traveling through this country all by himself as a young boy makes us nervous for him. He's going to where no one can hear him scream.
Quote #3
The proprietor avoided a yearning glance for help which the boy now cast in his direction by having wandered off to attend another customer. (1.1.29)
But you don't have to go out into the swamp to be isolated. Even in the café, Joel is lonesome because he has no one supporting him. Trying to get a little help from the owner gets him nowhere, and he learns quickly that he has to fend for himself.