Summary

This section of the book consists of a single long paragraph. The structure of this section’s summary somewhat reflects this, while the use of present-tense reflects the stream-of-consciousness sensibility of the writing.

One hot day in September, the narrator is given a note by a teacher’s assistant at the school where he teaches, interrupting a lesson in mid-sentence. The note is a printed email that asks the narrator to come home: his father is dying and is asking for him. The narrator leaves his classroom and the school building, walking through Sofia as he experiences a rush of memories. The first has to do with how his parents both hated to talk about their poverty-stricken childhoods, and how his father insisted that he was making a better life for his children. The next memory is of a moment of unguarded...