Chapter Five, Les Jeux Sont Faits Summary

While standing in front of the mannequin, the narrator reminisces about meeting Amanda in Kansas City, where he had gone to work as a reporter after college, (in the footsteps of the young Ernest Hemingway, who skipped college.) The writing here becomes compact and compelling, as if based, to some extent, on some real experience.

They met at a bar. Amanda worked for a florist and was excited by his Ivy League degree and his East Coast background. Her own family life was unhappy. Her stepfather was abusive. Within a week, she had moved in with him. They visited her mother just once before moving back east. His parents reacted to Amanda with kindness and charity.

"Your mother never turned away a stray dog, or heard about the plight of children in other...