Summary

The narrative shifts to an excerpt from Edmund Wright’s journal. In the entry, Wright states that the ghost of his recently deceased son William appeared in front of him. Wright was shaken and was eager to dismiss the moment as a hallucination. Yet, he also eagerly wished for a recurrence of the strange event. The novel then returns to the main narrative. Following Hannah’s death, Nick was consistently stricken with grief and emotional agony. When Nick visited Hannah’s parents following her death, he carefully avoided any mention of the decline in mental health that Hannah had experienced. Nick did not want Hannah’s parents to make the logical conclusion that Hannah’s death may have been a suicide rather than an accident. Nick briefly mentions his own family life; he had never had a close relationship with his own parents, Robert...