Summary

The brief chapter, “The Penultimate Update Nora Had Posted Before She Had Found Herself Between Life and Death,” takes us back in time to the second-last social media post Nora made before deciding to end her life. Nora compares life to a maze in which she cannot find her way and can hear other people living happily on the outside. She invites her followers to comment on this phenomenon.

Back in the present moment of the novel, Mrs Elm helps Nora understand the reason for her disappointment in her life with Dan. In “The Chessboard,” Mrs Elm says, “It’s hard to predict, isn’t it? The things that will make us happy” (61). Nora then chooses to experience a life in which she kept Voltaire indoors, in the hopes that he will be alive in that life. Unfortunately, she...