Summary

The book begins with a quote from French writer Albert Camus, translated to read “In the midst of winter, I finally found there was within me an invincible summer” (xx).

Lucia: Brooklyn, New York, 2016. During a heavy post-Christmas blizzard, Lucia holes herself up in her cave-like basement apartment. Eventually, loneliness and fear overwhelm her and she calls upstairs to her landlord Richard, inviting him down to share the soup. He casually says she has nothing to be afraid of and refuses the soup when he discovers it is not vegetarian. Narration then describes Lucia’s reflections on Richard – how her connections with him had enabled her to get a year-long contract as a visiting professor at the university where he teaches, and how, for a while, she had imagined having an affair with him. Narration also describes Lucia’s relative comfort with...