Summary

On Christmas day, a hunter encountered a young woman’s body in the snow. After praying beside her, he “dusted away the snow” around her, discovering “a gold chain that held a steel key, a whitegold ring” (3, McCarthy’s italics).

In Chapter I, in the last year of Alicia’s life, she admitted herself to the mental hospital, Stella Maris. A week later, she wandered off, and her hallucination, the Thalidomide Kid, “found her in a roominghouse” (5, McCarthy’s italics). The Kid paced around while the two talked about Alicia’s suicide plans. She wrote her brother Bobby Western a letter. They argued about time and secrets. Alicia told the Kid she “was fine” until he “showed up” (8, McCarthy’s italics). The Kid told Alicia she needed “to snap out of it,” as Bobby could not save her again (11, McCarthy’s italics). He...