Summary

The novel opens with a dialogue between G and his mother, who is soon to have surgery. G’s unnamed mother clearly disapproved of Sad But Great when they were together but asks how he is. G tells her that he just got out of the army and is messed up. He is staying with G for a while, reading Christina Rossetti and sometimes coming out of the bathroom covered in camouflage paint. G’s mother tells him to keep Sad away from G’s herd. They discuss Proust; G has just finished reading his multi-volume novel, In Search of Lost Time. They discuss G’s mother’s upcoming surgery. G offers to accompany her, but she declines, and they part ways.

The speaker of the next section, entitled “Wife of Brain,” sums up what has happened so far and hints at what is...