Summary

This section concerns pages 1-47 of the novel. Hans reflects that, on the day that he packed his office to leave London for New York, a senior colleague warned him that he would have a hard time ever leaving New York again; in the present tense of the novel, Hans concludes that this turned out to be true. He also remembers that, in the years after his return from New York to London, he received a call from a journalist asking about his friend Chuck Ramkissoon. Chuck had been murdered two years prior, and his body was discovered in the Gowanus Canal (4).

Hans recalls meeting Chuck for the first time, in August, 2002, during a cricket game on Staten Island. Hans had been living alone in New York since his wife, Rachel, left him with their son to return to England. He finds himself joining...