The following version of this book was used to create this guide: Li, Yiyun. The Book of Goose. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022.

Yiyun Li’s novel The Book of Goose is written from the first-person perspective. Li utilizes the past tense throughout the narrative.

Agnès Moreau, a Frenchwoman now living in Pennsylvania, learns that her childhood friend, Fabienne, has died in childbirth. Fabienne’s death prompts Agnès to write about their relationship.

As young girls in the aftermath of World War II, Agnès and Fabienne live in the small, impoverished village of Saint Rémy. Fabienne is independent, caustic, and sometimes cruel; both her mother and sister have died, and her father and brothers drink heavily as Fabienne tends their livestock. Agnès is more mild-mannered; her parents are distant but not unloving. Agnès and Fabienne are inseparable. They spend much of their time playing nonsensical games, all of them Fabienne’s creation. Fabienne often tells Agnès that she is stupid.

M. Devaux is the village postmaster. After M. Devaux’s wife dies, Fabienne suggests to Agnès that they ask him to assist in writing a book. Agnès believes this is one of Fabienne’s games. Fabienne often makes up stories involving gruesome and violent depictions of rural life. Agnès writes down Fabienne’s stories, and they bring these to M. Devaux. He grudgingly admires the stories and offers some edits and suggestions. After assembling a collection, M. Devaux and Agnès travel to Paris to meet with publishers. M. Devaux and Fabienne decide that they will conceal Fabienne’s role and will present Agnès as the sole author; they believe that Agnès will be a more fitting and attractive public figure. The publisher, skeptical of Agnès, tests her writing abilities. Pleased with the results, he agrees to publish the collection. Fabienne plans on composing a new book.

Agnès travels alone to Paris, where the press interviews her. When she returns to Saint Rémy, she learns that her brother has died. Fabienne tells Agnès that M. Devaux asked her to be his lover. Fearful that M. Devaux might expose her as the book’s real author, Fabienne suggests that they frame him in a crime. She purposefully gets M. Devaux drunk and publicly accuses him of attempting to touch her.

A woman named Mrs. Townsend, who runs a finishing school in England, visits Agnès in Saint Rémy. She offers to enroll Agnès for free at her school, where she will provide certain lessons that will ensure Agnès’ success in high society. Fabienne tells Agnès that she must go; Agnès’ education might allow them to extend their game and eventually leave the village. She promises to write to Agnès in England, both as herself and as her fictional brother, Jacques, who will be Agnès’ apparent boyfriend.

Mrs. Townsend is curt and formal. She and Agnès travel from Paris to London, where she buys Agnès new clothes and various other items. At the finishing school, Woodsway, Mrs. Townsend sternly encourages Agnès to write a book about her life in England. She admits that she once hoped to be an author herself. When Agnès receives a letter from the fictional Jacques, Mrs. Townsend tells her she is too young to have a boyfriend. In the letters that she writes from Jacques’ perspective, Fabienne is kind and loving to Agnès. In the letters from her own perspective, she is as tough and sarcastic as ever. The other students, all affluent girls, arrive at Woodsway; they are fascinated by Agnès’ fame and relative youth. Eventually, Mrs. Townsend forbids Agnès from corresponding with Jacques.

Agnès writes fantastical stories of her own. She begins to spend time with Meaker, the gardener at Woodsway. She connects with Meaker in a way that she cannot with her fellow students. After Mrs. Townsend expresses disapproval towards Agnès’ magical stories, Agnès begins to write a book about her life at Woodsway. Mrs. Townsend radically edits and revises Agnès’ story until it is virtually unrecognizable. Agnès worries that Fabienne is becoming bored and that their game of writing books will soon end. She resolves to escape Woodsway and asks Meaker for assistance. Meaker refuses and exposes her plan to Mrs. Townsend, who promptly fires Meaker for growing too close with a student. Agnès tells Mrs. Townsend that she wants to return to Saint Rémy and that she does not care if this ruins her career as a writer. Mrs. Townsend eventually acquiesces. Before sending Agnès back to France, she warns Agnès’ publisher that Agnès is likely not the true author of her book.

When Agnès returns to Saint Rémy, Fabienne tells her that the fictional Jacques has died. She then admits to Agnès that the game of writing books was an attempt to make their lives real. Agnès tells her that she wants them to spend their lives together, but Fabienne argues that this is impossible and that it will, again, not make their lives any more real. Over the course of several months, Fabienne and Agnès become distant. Agnès eventually moves to another village, and Fabienne allegedly joins a circus. Agnès begins to understand that Fabienne felt enormous, inexpressible emotions that were the driving forces behind her stories. Years later, after Fabienne’s death, Agnès knows that Fabienne would have laughed at her for writing the story of their friendship.