Chapter 5 Summary

New Yorkers drink and gossip, and gossip and drink. Writers compare themselves with other writers, artists with other artists, and psychoanalysts with psychoanalysts. Those who are in none of those categories make painful attempts to appear avant garde at a party to celebrate a painter's completion of his new canvas. "But you've got to understand New York," a bespectacled guest says. "New York is a social experience." Otto appears at the door in his white tropical suit, tanned and healthy. Someone asks why he went to work on a banana plantation in South America, and he responds that he enjoyed the climate and finished his novel that he now must try to sell to a publisher. Otto immediately asks if anyone has seen Esther and is introduced to Agnes Deigh a literary agent and member of the social circle who has recently returned...