Summary

The third section of the novel is presented as a transcription of Ezra Blazer’s recorded interview for the BBC radio program “Desert Island Discs” in London in February 2011. The interview series’ structure involves the interviewer asking the subject questions interspersed with favorite musical recordings – the “desert island discs” – that the subject has selected. In the interviewer’s introduction of Ezra and listing of his literary accolades, we learn that, the previous December, Ezra had finally won the Nobel Prize.

The interviewer begins by asking Ezra about his novel writing process, and how he has responded to harsh critics in the past, before inquiring about his childhood. We learn that Ezra grew up the youngest of three children in Pittsburgh, and his father was an accountant for a steel company. Ezra also tells the interviewer that after college he was drafted for the...