Summary

Every time David travels to the United States, it is on the heels of a major news story like SARS, anthrax, or, most recently, Ebola. Every angle of the subject is explored and "subsequently beaten to death" (107). While traveling the country on a lecture tour, David visits his old friend Janet and her son Jimmy in Omaha. Janet is the founder of the Wood Interpretation Society and finds artistic patterns in pieces of wood. Their conversation turns to the subject of elderly parents; Janet and David are both lucky that their aging parents are in good health, unlike some other people they know. David hopes he inherited his father's constitution but knows he is more like his mother, which is why he took it seriously when someone at a book signing suggested he had skin cancer. David then sees a dermatologist and has a...