Summary

Chapter 1 opens on an airplane flying to Helsinki, Finland. One of the passengers is the novel’s narrator and protagonist, Joan Castleman, née Joan Ames. She is accompanying her husband, Joe Castleman. Joe is a famous writer who has been chosen to receive the prestigious Helsinki Prize for Literature. Joe and Joan are approaching old age. On the airplane, Joan decides that she wishes to end her marriage to Joe. As a flight attendant flirts with Joe, Joan thinks about Joe’s high social status and his strong sexual appetites. Joan states in narration that Joe’s father died at an early age. Joe was raised in Brooklyn by his Jewish mother and her two sisters. In the 1940s, Joe attended Columbia University, where he majored in English and began to be sexually active. During the Korean War, he was discharged from military...