His Illegal Self opens with a personal history of the main character. In summer 1965, a boy is born to an idealistic young woman. The boy’s father disappeared six months previously; the mother leaves him behind after two years. He is raised by his grandma in upstate New York, surrounded by photographs of his mother as a child and young woman. His grandma refuses to call him in public by the name his mother gave him, instead smudging the sound into the more acceptable Jay.

In 1972, on an unusual trip into New York City, the boy hears a young woman he believes to be his returned mother use his real name, Che. This woman appears unannounced at the apartment and, after a bizarre shopping trip to Bloomingdale’s, instead of heading home with him and his grandma, she runs down into the subway with him. They jump the barriers to ride to Grand Central Station, where they board a bus to a place called Philly. He wants the woman to be his mother, but she asks him to call her Dial.