- The novel opens with our narrator telling us where he is and why he's there: He's in Comala, and he's looking for his Daddy, a guy named Pedro Páramo.
- He went looking for the deadbeat because his mother made him promise to do so on her deathbed—talk about a guilt trip—and so he took off.
- And, in case you were wondering, Comala is the name of a town in the Mexican state of Colima, and it's named Comala because that's where they made comales, the flat skillets used for heating tortillas.