Summary

The Sympathizer decides he is going to solicit BFD as a customer for The Boss in order to get revenge against him. The Maoist PhD calls The Sympathizer’s aunt asking for drugs instead. The Sympathizer’s aunt tells him she wants him to perfect his French. The Sympathizer reflects on the two men he has killed, a major who was executed on The Sympathizer’s word and a left-wing activist named Sonny. The Sympathizer’s aunt begins psychoanalyzing The Sympathizer and suggests that he has been Americanized and has failed, as a result, to be a good revolutionary. The Sympathizer feels that he can “sympathize with anyone” (41) and thinks back to the torture he suffered at the hands of his friend Man, who was sympathetic to The Sympathizer but used it against him.

The Sympathizer goes to visit The Boss...