Chapter 4 "With a rush of what was almost motion sickness, I experienced for a moment both the claustrophobic feeling that the walls had rushed in towards us and the vertiginous one that they receded infinitely, leaving both of us suspended in some boundless expanse of dark." The tension builds steadily in this chapter. It opens with a sense of uncertainty, as we're left in the dark about the whereabouts of Henry, Francis, and the twins, unsure of what they might be doing, and the chapter ends with the revelation of a disturbing truth, leaving me anticipating the difficult conversation that lies ahead.

Chapter 3 "If I threw myself off, I thought, who would find me in all that white silence? Might the river beat me downstream over the rocks until it spat me out in the quiet waters, down behind the dye factory, where some lady would catch me in the beam of her headlights when she pulled out of the parking lot at five in the afternoon? Or would I, like the pieces of Leo's mandolin, lodge stubbornly in some quiet place behind a boulder and wait, my clothes washing about me, for spring?" I read this chapter while sitting by a window in a local café, watching the rain outside. It wasn’t too cold and my coffee was warm, yet I still felt like I was freezing to death alongside Richard in that room. And just when the tension couldn’t get any heavier, Henry’s sudden appearance made everything even more intriguing.

Chapter 2 "The chronological sorting of memories is an interesting business. Prior to this first weekend in the country, my recollections of that fall are distant and blurry: from here on out, they come into a sharp, delightful focus. It is here that the stilted mannequins of my initial acquaintance begin to yawn and stretch and come to life." I loved the cadence of this chapter - beginning with the chaotic and intense dinner scene and ending with all of them together in that isolated house.

Chapter 1 "It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves?" Oh wow, I guess it's finally time to start a 600 page story told by a totally unreliable narrator.