Summary

Chapter 1 begins with Elena recounting a day in 1966 when Lila gave her a metal box that contained several notebooks she didn't want her husband to see. She also notes that "at that time" they were in a bad spot in their friendship, and yet the long history between them demanded that Elena take the notebooks, promising that she'd never read them. However, she did read them, the second she was on the train. They weren't diaries, although they did detail the events of their life together. It seems to Elena that Lila was making herself write, and the characters of the neighborhood were drawn with "ruthless accuracy." The stark details of their adolescence are laid out in the notebooks, and one night Elena dumps them in the river, wanting to be rid of Lila and her thoughts on their life.

Chapter 2 takes the...