Summary

Alicia arrives late to her meeting with Dr. Cohen. He notes that she was placed on suicide watch the last time she was at Stella Maris, and she suggests it was because she made her previous therapist, one Dr. Horowitz, “nervous” (123). Dr. Cohen suggests that she has never “really spent much time with people,” and she notes that a possible exception is her brother, Bobby, who she again says she does not want to discuss. Dr. Cohen persists just a bit, asking her if he was similarly pessimistic about the world. She replies that he was not. He used to try to cheer her up, and she notes that she is generally “more inclined to metaphysical musings” than he is (125).

Cohen abruptly shifts gears by asking Alicia how many books she has read in her life, and she estimates 10,000 (calculating more than two...