Book 2, Part 6 Summary

Book 2 opens with Sabbath hitting the streets of New York for the first time in thirty years. He feels like Rip Van Winkle, having missed the transformation others have told him about, "of New York into a place utterly antagonistic to sanity and civil life, a city that by the 1990s had brought to perfection the art of killing the soul." (pg. 189) Sabbath doesn't believe in this characterization of New York. Unlike his neighbors in Madamaska Falls, Sabbath can appreciate any city that brings out the worst in people. He had considered moving back over the years, but never took any action to do so.

Suicidal thoughts accompany Sabbath on to the subway and he composes his own obituary during the brief ride downtown. In it, he lists his last act before plunging out of Norman's eighteenth story window to be...