Summary

In Book I, “How to Catch Foxes,” Chapter 1, Amanda is living in Ibiza with her friends Catherine and Ernest Shuger. Catherine is “a sculptor who has been declared legally insane” (3). Ernest is “a freelance writer of popular science articles” (3). Amanda was in Brazil before coming to Ibiza. The companions are all American expatriates.

Amanda is “writing this” while Catherine writes “in her therapy notebook” (3). Catherine is constantly in and out of asylums. Every time she tries to kill Ernest, he puts her in the hospital. He does not leave her though she keeps attacking him. Once, she tried to kill him while the three were passing “a salvage dump in Detroit” (4). Catherine is no longer allowed to use sharp objects in her sculptures. The companions “stopped allowing knives” in the house, too (6). Catherine told Amanda about a woman at the hospital who cut...