In this chap­ter, Lis­beth Salan­der observes a woman stay­ing at a hotel, sus­pect­ing domes­tic abuse due to muf­fled sounds of dis­tress from the neigh­bor­ing room. Salan­der, engaged in her own rou­tine, reflects on the mys­te­ri­ous steel drum music and feels irri­tat­ed by the wom­an’s choice to stay despite appar­ent abuse. The chap­ter sets a tone of intrigue and sus­pi­cion as Salan­der con­tem­plates the sit­u­a­tion.

In the open­ing chap­ter of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” we are intro­duced to Patch, a thir­teen-year-old boy liv­ing in the small town of Mon­ta Clare, over­shad­owed by the St. Fran­cois Moun­tains. From the kitchen’s flat roof, Patch gazes at the oak and pine trees, dream­ing of the adven­tures that lie beyond the Ozark Plateau. He firm­ly believes in the exis­tence of a brighter world, filled with gold and oppor­tu­ni­ties wait­ing just for him.

Lat­er in the chap­ter, the nar­ra­tive shifts to a moment of impend­ing tragedy. Patch imag­ines that his day’s beau­ty will become a cher­ished mem­o­ry, despite the unfore­seen turn of events that may come. He returns to his bed­room, dress­ing elab­o­rate­ly in a tri­corne and waist­coat, trans­form­ing navy slacks into makeshift breech­es. He car­ries a small dag­ger, an arti­fact of his imag­i­na­tive world influ­enced by the pirate tales that cap­ti­vate him. This fan­ta­sy serves as a refuge from his harsh real­i­ty, shaped by his unique circumstances—being born with one eye.

As the chap­ter explores his bed­room’s con­tents, it offers a glimpse into Patch’s life. A black flag hides a hole in the dry­wall, and the clos­et lacks doors—symbolizing a life filled with both adven­ture and neglect. Antique trea­sures, includ­ing a trea­sure chest and props from pirate movies, reflect his dreams. The police inves­ti­ga­tion lat­er uncov­ers these details, depict­ing Patch’s pen­chant for fan­ta­sy and the odd­i­ty of his pos­ses­sions.

Patch’s affin­i­ty for eye patch­es, par­tic­u­lar­ly a pur­ple satin one made by his moth­er, sym­bol­izes his long­ing for accep­tance and his fan­ci­ful aspi­ra­tions. He reflects on his mother’s influ­ence, her strug­gles evi­dent from her sun-dam­aged skin, a mark of her night shifts. The affec­tion­ate ban­ter between them reveals their bond, with Patch appre­ci­at­ing her laugh­ter amidst the chal­lenges they face.

The chap­ter ends on a hope­ful note as Patch declares his deter­mi­na­tion to make each day count, naive­ly believ­ing that today could be the best day of his life, unaware of the trag­ic events lurk­ing ahead. This opti­mism poignant­ly jux­ta­pos­es the rev­e­la­tion of his real­i­ty, fore­shad­ow­ing the chaos that awaits.

In the first chap­ter, Phoebe Stone arrives at the Corn­wall Inn, an ele­gant hotel perched on a cliff over­look­ing the ocean. The hotel evokes a sense of nos­tal­gia and excite­ment for her as she steps out of the cab dressed in a strik­ing emer­ald silk dress, the only item she tru­ly cher­ish­es fol­low­ing her recent divorce. Leav­ing behind her old life in St. Louis, includ­ing her hus­band and all her belong­ings, Phoebe feels both lib­er­at­ed and lost amidst the ongo­ing lock­downs.

Recall­ing her mun­dane exis­tence dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, she rem­i­nisces about the com­fort­able life of a pro­fes­sor, filled with pre­dictable rou­tines and sim­ple joys. How­ev­er, she has come to real­ize that she no longer fits into that nor­mal mold, prompt­ing her jour­ney to New­port. Before board­ing her flight, Phoebe con­scious­ly choos­es the emer­ald dress—a depar­ture from her pro­fes­sor attire—signifying her desire to reclaim her­self.

As she enters the hotel, she expe­ri­ences a mix of antic­i­pa­tion and bewil­der­ment. The check-in line is unex­pect­ed­ly long, filled with guests prepar­ing for wed­dings, con­trast­ing sharply with her state of soli­tude. Phoebe observes the wed­ding peo­ple, feel­ing dis­con­nect­ed from their joy and com­pan­ion­ship. The bride, who appears to be the cen­ter of atten­tion, embod­ies every­thing Phoebe wish­es she could be.

Upon final­ly check­ing in and con­vers­ing with a staff mem­ber, Phoebe reflects on her hap­py place, the Corn­wall Inn, which she has envi­sioned since see­ing it in a trav­el mag­a­zine years ago. How­ev­er, the con­ver­sa­tion with the front desk atten­dant reveals her deep-seat­ed feel­ings of iso­la­tion and her strug­gle with identity—her name, “Phoebe Stone,” now feels like a rem­nant of her past life.

Caught in her dis­con­nec­tion from oth­ers and her mem­o­ries of hap­pi­er times, Phoebe comes to a stark real­iza­tion about her exis­tence and the weight of her soli­tude. The chap­ter ends with her feel­ing that wher­ev­er she goes, her under­ly­ing sad­ness remains, echo­ing the sen­ti­ment that a ‘hap­py place’ is not mere­ly about loca­tion but the emo­tion­al state one car­ries with them.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

The chap­ter dives into the roots of upbring­ing in the South, empha­siz­ing tra­di­tion­al val­ues of respect and silence towards par­ents, a stark con­trast to the narrator’s per­son­al expe­ri­ence of expres­sion through singing. Born in McComb, Mis­sis­sip­pi, and raised in Kent­wood, Louisiana, the nar­ra­tor paints a vivid pic­ture of a tight-knit com­mu­ni­ty where life revolves around church gath­er­ings, famil­ial out­ings, and Civ­il War reen­act­ments. Singing emerges as a spir­i­tu­al quar­an­tine, pro­vid­ing solace and an escape from mun­dane wor­ries.

The narrator’s child­hood was swathed in the sim­plic­i­ty of small-town life – from attend­ing Chris­t­ian schools to shar­ing in com­mu­nal cel­e­bra­tions – yet it was deeply enriched by music. An encounter with a house­keep­er’s gospel singing sparks a pro­found pas­sion in the nar­ra­tor, trans­form­ing singing into an essen­tial mode of self-expres­sion and con­nec­tion with some­thing greater than one­self.

The back­drop of famil­ial his­to­ry intro­duces a dual­i­ty of tragedy and aspi­ra­tion. The nar­ra­tor shares the dis­tress­ing sto­ry of their grand­moth­er, Jean, who faced immense grief and ulti­mate­ly took her own life, cast­ing a shad­ow of sor­row and com­plex­i­ty over the fam­i­ly’s lega­cy. This his­to­ry con­trasts sharply with the narrator’s mother’s lin­eage, which car­ries hints of ele­gance and sophis­ti­ca­tion from Lon­don, under­scor­ing a con­flict between the worlds of aspi­ra­tion and the harsh real­i­ties of rur­al Amer­i­can life.

Ear­ly on, the nar­ra­tor devel­ops a strong sense of iden­ti­ty and ambi­tion, fueled by a desire to tran­scend the con­fines of their sur­round­ings through art and imag­i­na­tion. The act of singing becomes not just a way to bridge the gap between real­i­ty and fan­ta­sy but also a means to cope with the bur­dens of famil­ial his­to­ry and per­son­al dreams.

The chap­ter weaves togeth­er themes of cul­tur­al her­itage, per­son­al tragedy, and the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of music, illus­trat­ing how one’s ori­gins and fam­i­ly lega­cies can deeply influ­ence one’s jour­ney towards self-expres­sion and ful­fill­ment. The narrator’s jour­ney is marked by a long­ing to escape into a world of dreams, under­scored by a com­mit­ment to pur­sue singing as a path­way to free­dom and dis­cov­ery.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER 1
In 1988, George H. W. Bush had just won the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion by
invit­ing every­one to read his lips while Michael Dukakis lost it by
rid­ing in a tank. Dr. Huxtable was America’s dad, Kate & Allie were
America’s moms, The Gold­en Girls were America’s grand­moms,
McDonald’s announced it was open­ing its first restau­rant in the
Sovi­et Union, every­one bought Stephen Hawking’s A Brief His­to­ry of
Time and didn’t read it, Phan­tom of the Opera opened on Broad­way,
and Patri­cia Camp­bell got ready to die.
She sprayed her hair, put on her ear­rings, and blot­ted her lip­stick,
but when she looked at her­self in the mir­ror she didn’t see a
house­wife of thir­ty-nine with two chil­dren and a bright future, she
saw a dead per­son. Unless war broke out, the oceans rose, or the
earth fell into the sun, tonight was the month­ly meet­ing of the
Lit­er­ary Guild of Mt. Pleas­ant, and she hadn’t read this month’s
book. And she was the dis­cus­sant. Which meant that in less than
nine­ty min­utes she would stand up in front of a room full of women
and lead them in a con­ver­sa­tion about a book she hadn’t read.
She had meant to read Cry, the Beloved Country—honestly—but
every time she picked up her copy and read There is a love­ly road
that runs from Ixopo into the hills, Korey rode her bike off the end of
the dock because she thought that if she ped­aled fast enough she
could skim across the water, or she set her brother’s hair on fire
try­ing to see how close she could get a match before it caught, or she
spent an entire week­end telling every­one who called that her moth­er
couldn’t come to the phone because she was dead, which Patri­cia
only learned about when peo­ple start­ed show­ing up at the front door
with con­do­lence casseroles.
Before Patri­cia could dis­cov­er why the road that runs from Ixopo
was so love­ly, she’d see Blue run past the sun porch win­dows buck
naked, or she’d real­ize the house was so qui­et because she’d left him
at the down­town library and had to jump in the Vol­vo and fly back
over the bridge, pray­ing that he hadn’t been kid­napped by Moonies,
or because he’d decid­ed to see how many raisins he could fit up his
nose (twen­ty-four). She nev­er even learned where Ixopo was exact­ly
because her moth­er-in-law, Miss Mary, moved in with them for a six-
week vis­it and the garage room had to have clean tow­els, and the
sheets on the guest bed had to be changed every day, and Miss Mary
had trou­ble get­ting out of the tub so they had one of those bars
installed and she had to find some­body to do that, and the chil­dren
had laun­dry that need­ed to be done, and Carter had to have his shirts
ironed, and Korey want­ed new soc­cer cleats because every­one else
had them but they real­ly couldn’t afford them right now, and Blue
was only eat­ing white food so she had to make rice every night for
sup­per, and the road to Ixopo ran on to the hills with­out her.
Join­ing the Lit­er­ary Guild of Mt. Pleas­ant had seemed like a good
idea at the time. Patri­cia real­ized she need­ed to get out of the house
and meet new peo­ple the moment she leaned over at sup­per with
Carter’s boss and tried to cut up his steak for him. A book club made
sense because she liked read­ing, espe­cial­ly mys­ter­ies. Carter had
sug­gest­ed it was because she went through life as if the entire world
were a mys­tery to her, and she didn’t dis­agree: Patri­cia Camp­bell
and the Secret of Cook­ing Three Meals a Day, Sev­en Days a Week,
with­out Los­ing Your Mind. Patri­cia Camp­bell and the Case of the
Five-Year-Old Child Who Keeps Bit­ing Oth­er Peo­ple. Patri­cia
Camp­bell and the Mys­tery of Find­ing Enough Time to Read the
News­pa­per When You Have Two Chil­dren and a Moth­er-in-Law
Liv­ing with You and Every­one Needs Their Clothes Washed, and to
Be Fed, and the House Needs to Be Cleaned and Some­one Has to
Give the Dog His Heart­worm Pills and You Should Prob­a­bly Wash
Your Own Hair Every Few Days or Your Daugh­ter Is Going to Ask
Why You Look Like a Street Per­son. A few dis­creet inquiries, and
she’d been invit­ed to the inau­gur­al meet­ing of the Lit­er­ary Guild of
Mt. Pleas­ant at Mar­jorie Fretwell’s house.
The Lit­er­ary Guild of Mt. Pleas­ant picked their books for that year
in a very demo­c­ra­t­ic process: Mar­jorie Fretwell invit­ed them to select
eleven books from a list of thir­teen she found appro­pri­ate. She asked
if there were oth­er books any­one want­ed to rec­om­mend, but
every­one under­stood that wasn’t a real ques­tion, except for Slick
Paley, who seemed chron­i­cal­ly unable to read social cues.
“I’d like to nom­i­nate Like Lambs to the Slaugh­ter: Your Child and
the Occult,” Slick said. “With that crys­tal store on Cole­man
Boule­vard and Shirley MacLaine on the cov­er of Time mag­a­zine
talk­ing about her past lives, we need a wake-up call.”
“I’ve nev­er heard of it,” Mar­jorie Fretwell said. “So I imag­ine it
falls out­side our man­date of read­ing the great books of the West­ern
world. Any­one else?”
“But—” Slick protest­ed.
“Any­one else?” Mar­jorie repeat­ed.
They select­ed the books Mar­jorie wrote down for them, assigned
each book to the month Mar­jorie thought best, and picked the
dis­cus­sants Mar­jorie thought were most appro­pri­ate. The dis­cus­sant
would open the meet­ing by deliv­er­ing a twen­ty-minute pre­sen­ta­tion
on the book, its back­ground, and the life of its author, then lead the
group dis­cus­sion. A dis­cus­sant could not can­cel or trade books with
any­one else with­out pay­ing a stiff fine because the Lit­er­ary Guild of
Mt. Pleas­ant was not fool­ing around.
When it became clear she wasn’t going to be able to fin­ish Cry, the
Beloved Coun­try, Patri­cia called Mar­jorie.
“Mar­jorie,” she said over the phone while putting a lid on the rice
and turn­ing it down from a boil. “It’s Patri­cia Camp­bell. I need to
talk to you about Cry, the Beloved Coun­try.”
“Such a pow­er­ful work,” Mar­jorie said.
“Of course,” Patri­cia said.
“I know you’ll do it jus­tice,” Mar­jorie said.
“I’ll do my best,” Patri­cia said, real­iz­ing that this was the exact
oppo­site of what she need­ed to say.
“And it’s so time­ly with the sit­u­a­tion in South Africa right now,”
Mar­jorie said.
A cold bolt of fear shot through Patri­cia: what was the sit­u­a­tion in
South Africa right now?
After she hung up, Patri­cia cursed her­self for being a cow­ard and a
fool, and vowed to go to the library and look up Cry, the Beloved
Coun­try in the Direc­to­ry of World Lit­er­a­ture, but she had to do
snacks for Korey’s soc­cer team, and the babysit­ter had mono, and
Carter had a sud­den trip to Colum­bia and she had to help him pack,
and then a snake came out of the toi­let in the garage room and she
had to beat it to death with a rake, and Blue drank a bot­tle of Wite-
Out and she had to take him to the doc­tor to see if he would die (he
wouldn’t). She tried to look up Alan Paton, the author, in their World
Book Ency­clo­pe­dia but they were miss­ing the P vol­ume. She made a
men­tal note that they need­ed new ency­clo­pe­dias.
The door­bell rang.
“Mooooom,” Korey called from the down­stairs hall. “Pizza’s here!”
She couldn’t put it off any longer. It was time to face Mar­jorie.
—
Mar­jorie had hand­outs.
“These are just a few arti­cles about cur­rent events in South Africa,
includ­ing the recent unpleas­ant­ness in Van­der­bi­jl­park,” she said.
“But I think Patri­cia will sum things up nice­ly for us in her dis­cus­sion
of Mr. Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Coun­try.”
Every­one turned to stare at Patri­cia sit­ting on Marjorie’s enor­mous
pink-and-white sofa. Not being famil­iar with the design of Marjorie’s
home, she had put on a flo­ral dress and felt like all any­one saw were
her head and hands float­ing in midair. She wished she could pull
them into her dress and dis­ap­pear com­plete­ly. She felt her soul exit
her body and hov­er up by the ceil­ing.
“But before she begins,” Mar­jorie said, and every head turned back
her way, “let’s have a moment of silence for Mr. Alan Paton. His
pass­ing ear­li­er this year has shak­en the lit­er­ary world as much as it’s
shak­en me.”
Patricia’s brain chased itself in cir­cles: the author was dead?
Recent­ly? She hadn’t seen any­thing in the paper. What could she
say? How had he died? Was he mur­dered? Torn apart by wild dogs?
Heart attack?
“Amen,” Mar­jorie said. “Patri­cia?”
Patricia’s soul decid­ed that it was no fool and ascend­ed into the
after­life, leav­ing her at the mer­cy of the women sur­round­ing her.
There was Grace Cavanaugh, who lived two doors down from Patri­cia
but whom she’d only met once when Grace rang her door­bell and
said, “I’m sor­ry to both­er you, but you’ve lived here for six months
and I need to know: is this the way you intend for your yard to look?”
Slick Paley blinked rapid­ly, her sharp foxy face and tiny eyes glued
to Patri­cia, her pen poised above her note­book. Louise Gibbes
cleared her throat. Cuffy Williams blew her nose slow­ly into a
Kleenex. Sadie Funche leaned for­ward, nib­bling on a cheese straw,
eyes bor­ing into Patri­cia. The only per­son not look­ing at Patri­cia was
Kit­ty Scrug­gs, who eyed the bot­tle of wine in the cen­ter of the cof­fee
table that no one had dared open.
“Well…,” Patri­cia began. “Didn’t we all love Cry, the Beloved
Coun­try?”
Sadie, Slick, and Cuffy nod­ded. Patri­cia glanced at her watch and
saw that sev­en sec­onds had passed. She could run out the clock. She
let the silence linger hop­ing some­one would jump in and say
some­thing, but the long pause only prompt­ed Mar­jorie to say,
“Patri­cia?”
“It’s so sad that Alan Paton was cut down in the prime of his life
before writ­ing more nov­els like Cry, the Beloved Coun­try,” Patri­cia
said, feel­ing her way for­ward, word by word, guid­ed by the nods of
the oth­er women. “Because this book has so many time­ly and
rel­e­vant things to say to us now, espe­cial­ly after the ter­ri­ble events in
Vander…Vanderbill…South Africa.”
The nod­ding got stronger. Patri­cia felt her soul descend­ing back
into her body. She forged ahead.
“I want­ed to tell you all about Alan Paton’s life,” she said. “And
why he wrote this book, but all those facts don’t express how
pow­er­ful this sto­ry is, how much it moved me, the great cry of
out­rage I felt when I read it. This is a book you read with your heart,
not with your mind. Did any­one else feel that way?”
The nods were gen­er­al, all over the liv­ing room.
“Exact­ly.” Slick Paley nod­ded. “Yes.”
“I feel so strong­ly about South Africa,” Patri­cia said, and then
remem­bered that Mary Brasington’s hus­band was in bank­ing and
Joanie Wieter’s hus­band did some­thing with the stock mar­ket and
they might have invest­ments there. “But I know there are many sides
to the issue, and I won­der if any­one want­ed to present anoth­er point
of view. In the spir­it of Mr. Paton’s book, this should be a
con­ver­sa­tion, not a speech.”
Every­one was nod­ding. Her soul set­tled back into her body. She
had done it. She had sur­vived. Mar­jorie cleared her throat.
“Patri­cia,” Mar­jorie asked. “What did you think about what the
book had to say about Nel­son Man­dela?”
“So inspi­ra­tional,” Patri­cia said. “He sim­ply tow­ers over
every­thing, even though he’s real­ly just men­tioned.”
“I don’t believe he is,” Mar­jorie said, and Slick Paley stopped
nod­ding. “Where did you see him men­tioned? On which page?”
Patricia’s soul began ascend­ing into the light again. Good-bye, it
said. Good-bye, Patri­cia. You’re on your own now…
“His spir­it of free­dom?” Patri­cia said. “It per­vades every page?”
“When this book was writ­ten,” Mar­jorie said. “Nel­son Man­dela
was still a law stu­dent and a minor mem­ber of the ANC. I’m not sure
how his spir­it could be any­where in this book, let alone per­vad­ing
every page.”
Mar­jorie drilled into Patricia’s face with her ice-pick eyes.
“Well,” Patri­cia croaked, because she was dead now and
appar­ent­ly death felt very, very dry. “What he was going to do. You
could feel it build­ing. In here. In this book. That we read.”
“Patri­cia,” Mar­jorie said. “You didn’t read the book, did you?”
Time stopped. No one moved. Patri­cia want­ed to lie, but a life­time
of breed­ing had made her a lady.
“Some of it,” Patri­cia said.
Mar­jorie let out a soul-deep sigh that seemed to go on for­ev­er.
“Where did you stop?” she asked.
“The first page?” Patri­cia said, then began to bab­ble. “I’m sor­ry, I
know I’ve let you down, but the babysit­ter had mono, and Carter’s
moth­er is stay­ing with us, and a snake came out of the com­mode,
and everything’s just been so hard this month. I real­ly don’t know
what to say except I’m so, so sor­ry.”
Black crept in around the edges of her vision. A high-pitched tone
shrilled in her right ear.
“Well,” Mar­jorie said. “You’re the one who’s lost out, by rob­bing
your­self of what is pos­si­bly one of the finest works of world
lit­er­a­ture. And you’ve robbed all of us of your unique point of view.
But what’s done is done. Who else would be will­ing to lead the
dis­cus­sion?”
Sadie Funche retract­ed into her Lau­ra Ash­ley dress like a tur­tle,
Nan­cy Fox start­ed shak­ing her head before Mar­jorie even reached
the end of her sen­tence, and Cuffy Williams froze like a prey ani­mal
con­front­ed by a preda­tor.
“Did any­one actu­al­ly read this month’s book?” Mar­jorie asked.
Silence.
“I can­not believe this,” Mar­jorie said. “We all agreed, eleven
months ago, to read the great books of the West­ern world and now,
less than one year lat­er, we’ve come to this. I am deeply dis­ap­point­ed
in all of you. I thought we want­ed to bet­ter our­selves, expose
our­selves to thoughts and ideas from out­side Mt. Pleas­ant. The men
all say, ‘It’s not too clever for a girl to be clever,’ and they laugh at us
and think we only care about our hair. The only books they give us
are cook­books because in their minds we are sil­ly, light­weight know-
noth­ings. And you’ve just proven them right.”
She stopped to catch her breath. Patri­cia noticed sweat glis­ten­ing
in her eye­brows. Mar­jorie con­tin­ued:
“I strong­ly sug­gest y’all go home and think about whether you
want to join us next month to read Jude the Obscure and—”
Grace Cavanaugh stood, hitch­ing her purse over one shoul­der.
“Grace?” Mar­jorie asked. “Are you not stay­ing?”
“I just remem­bered an appoint­ment,” Grace said. “It entire­ly
slipped my mind.”
“Well,” Mar­jorie said, her momen­tum under­mined. “Don’t let me
keep you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Grace said.
And with that, the tall, ele­gant, pre­ma­ture­ly gray Grace float­ed out
of the room.
Robbed of its veloc­i­ty, the meet­ing dis­solved. Mar­jorie retreat­ed to
the kitchen, fol­lowed by a con­cerned Sadie Funche. A dispir­it­ed
clump of women lin­gered around the dessert table mak­ing chitchat.
Patri­cia lurked in her chair until no one seemed to be watch­ing, then
dart­ed out of the house.
As she cut across Marjorie’s front yard, she heard a noise that
sound­ed like Hey. She stopped and looked for the source.
“Hey,” Kit­ty Scrug­gs repeat­ed.
Kit­ty lurked behind the line of parked cars in Marjorie’s dri­ve­way,
a cloud of blue smoke hov­er­ing over her head, a long thin cig­a­rette
between her fin­gers. Next to her stood Maryellen some­thing-or-
oth­er, also smok­ing. Kit­ty waved Patri­cia over with one hand.
Patri­cia knew that Maryellen was a Yan­kee from Mass­a­chu­setts
who told every­one that she was a fem­i­nist. And Kit­ty was one of
those big women who wore the kind of clothes peo­ple char­i­ta­bly
referred to as “fun”—baggy sweaters with mul­ti­col­ored hand­prints
on them, chunky plas­tic jew­el­ry. Patri­cia sus­pect­ed that get­ting
entan­gled with women like this was the first step on a slip­pery slope
that end­ed with her wear­ing felt rein­deer antlers at Christ­mas, or
stand­ing out­side Citadel Mall ask­ing peo­ple to sign a peti­tion, so she
approached them with cau­tion.
“I liked what you did in there,” Kit­ty said.
“I should have found time to read the book,” Patri­cia told her.
“Why?” Kit­ty asked. “It was bor­ing. I couldn’t make it past the first
chap­ter.”
“I need to write Mar­jorie a note,” Patri­cia said. “To apol­o­gize.”
Maryellen squint­ed against the smoke and sucked on her cig­a­rette.
“Mar­jorie got what she deserved,” she said, exhal­ing.
“Lis­ten.” Kit­ty placed her body between the two of them and
Marjorie’s front door, just in case Mar­jorie was watch­ing and could
read lips. “I’m hav­ing some peo­ple read a book and come over to my
house next month to talk about it. Maryellen’ll be there.”
“I couldn’t pos­si­bly find the time to belong to two book clubs,”
Patri­cia said.
“Trust me,” Kit­ty said. “After today, Marjorie’s book club is done.”
“What book are you read­ing?” Patri­cia asked, grop­ing for rea­sons
to say no.
Kit­ty reached into her den­im shoul­der bag and pulled out the kind
of cheap paper­back they sold at the drug­store.
“Evi­dence of Love: A True Sto­ry of Pas­sion and Death in the
Sub­urbs,” she said.
It took Patri­cia aback. This was one of those trashy true crime
books. But clear­ly Kit­ty was read­ing it and you couldn’t call some­one
else’s taste in books trashy, even if it was.
“I’m not sure that’s my kind of book,” Patri­cia said.
“These two women were best friends and they chopped each oth­er
up with axes,” Kit­ty said. “Don’t pre­tend you don’t want to know
what hap­pened.”
“Jude is obscure for a rea­son,” Maryellen growled.

On a drea­ry Feb­ru­ary day, amidst relent­less rain, the pro­tag­o­nist dri­ves from Cen­ter Point to Moun­tain Brook to ful­fill her duty as a dog walk­er in the afflu­ent Thorn­field Estates. The jour­ney begins at the Reeds’ house­hold, where Mrs. Reed express­es a per­for­ma­tive sym­pa­thy for the pro­tag­o­nist hav­ing to walk her col­lie, Bear, in such unpleas­ant weath­er. This act under­scores the pri­ma­ry con­cern in Thorn­field Estates: appear­ances.

Mrs. Reed’s disin­gen­u­ous empa­thy con­trasts sharply with the pro­tag­o­nist’s indif­fer­ence towards her and the super­fi­cial­i­ty of the res­i­dents’ char­i­ta­ble endeav­ors, which seem more about social sta­tus than gen­uine phil­an­thropy. The pro­tag­o­nist, equipped with a prag­mat­ic army-green rain­coat against the rain, sets out with Bear, pon­der­ing on the lux­u­ri­ous yet hol­low lifestyle of her employ­ers ver­sus her own mod­est liv­ing con­di­tions.

Her obser­va­tions reveal a stark dis­par­i­ty; while every McMan­sion boasts lush back­yards ren­der­ing dog walk­ers tech­ni­cal­ly unnec­es­sary, the demand for such ser­vices is dri­ven by desire rather than need, high­light­ing the extrav­a­gance that defines the com­mu­ni­ty. Not only does Mrs. Reed live in a lav­ish home far too large for mere inhab­i­tants, but this opu­lence is mir­rored through­out the estate. The pro­tag­o­nist reflects on her employ­ment with var­i­ous fam­i­lies with­in the neigh­bor­hood, such as the McLarens, the Clarks, and Tripp Ingra­ham, not­ing the token ges­tures of respect afford­ed to her as the help — a shal­low attempt by the wealthy to assuage their guilt.

As she nav­i­gates the neigh­bor­hood, the con­trast between the man­i­cured per­fec­tion of Thorn­field Estates and the drab real­i­ty of her apart­ment becomes evi­dent. Despite her attempts to beau­ti­fy her small, leaky apart­ment, it can­not com­pare to the vibrant, metic­u­lous­ly main­tained homes she ser­vices. The neigh­bor­hood, alive with the buzz of main­te­nance crews, stands in stark oppo­si­tion to her own sim­ple exis­tence. Even as she mus­es on the lux­u­ry of a Burber­ry jack­et she saw at Mrs. Clark’s, the pro­tag­o­nist is sharply aware of the chasm between her world and that of her employ­ers — a chasm under­scored by her rain-soaked, prag­mat­ic attire and a yearn­ing for some­thing bet­ter amidst the afflu­ence that sur­rounds her.

In the open­ing chap­ter of “The Beasts of Tarzan”, the nar­ra­tive thrusts John Clay­ton, Lord Greystoke—formerly Tarzan of the Apes—into a sin­is­ter plot brewed by his old neme­sis, Niko­las Rokoff. The sto­ry unfolds in Lieu­tenant Paul D’Arnot’s Paris apart­ment, where Tarzan and D’Arnot learn of Rokof­f’s escape from prison. Sub­se­quent­ly, Tarzan, who had brought his fam­i­ly to Lon­don to escape the rainy sea­son in Uziri, decides to return to them, fear­ing Rokoff might harm his wife, Jane, or their son, Jack, to enact revenge.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, in a seclud­ed cot­tage on the out­skirts of Lon­don, Rokoff and his asso­ciate Alex­is plot to kid­nap Tarzan’s fam­i­ly as part of a deep­er scheme for revenge and prof­it. A mes­sage soon dis­rupts the tran­quil­i­ty of Tarzan’s Lon­don home, inform­ing him that Jack has been kid­napped, prompt­ing a fran­tic return to res­cue his child. Jane recounts the episode of Jack­’s kidnapping—how a new house­man, Carl, tricked the nan­ny, lead­ing to the baby’s abduc­tion via a taxi­cab orches­trat­ed by Rokoff and his asso­ciates.

Tarzan receives a mys­te­ri­ous call offer­ing infor­ma­tion on his son’s where­abouts in exchange for immu­ni­ty from pros­e­cu­tion. Fear­ing a trap but des­per­ate to find his son, Tarzan heads to Dover to meet the infor­mant, secret­ly fol­lowed by Jane, who decides to act despite the poten­tial dan­ger. Once in Dover, Tarzan is led to believe Jack is aboard a steam­er, but as he fol­lows the infor­man­t’s instruc­tions, he real­izes too late that he has walked into a trap, becom­ing a pris­on­er aboard the ship him­self.

This chap­ter is a tense set­up for the ensu­ing adven­ture, illus­trat­ing Tarzan’s unwa­ver­ing resolve amidst betray­al and his innate con­nec­tion to his jun­gle-honed instincts. It adept­ly posi­tions fam­i­ly loy­al­ty against a back­drop of sin­is­ter machi­na­tions, set­ting the stage for a grip­ping nar­ra­tive of sur­vival and vengeance.