Section 10 (pages 239-261) Summary

After graduation, Jimmy attains a summer job at the Martha Graham library but gets fired because he cannot bear to throw out books. Then he shacks up with his girlfriend, a conceptual artist from the Texas pleeblands named Amanda Payne. She has two male roommates who are also artists. The roommates shun Jimmy after he brings home a bucket of ChickieNobs for dinner one night. Amanda's roommates believe that human society is a monster that leaves behind corpses and rubble. Amanda works on a project called Vulture Sculptures, which involves arranging dead-animal parts into four-letter words and photographing vultures tearing them apart.

Jimmy takes a job with AnooYoo, a minor compound that specializes in self-improvement products. Amanda dismisses the company as a collection of cesspool denizens who prey on people's phobias.

Jimmy moves into an apartment at the AnooYoo...