Chapters 39–51 Summary and Analysis
Milky Way
Walking out onstage to find that she cannot see anything through the stage lights and the camera flashes, Nora focuses in on the chanting crowd. They are chanting for her, with love and admiration, and suddenly she finds a whole new sense of confidence.
Wild and Free
Nora sits down at the keyboard and addresses the crowd. The audience cheers rapturously as she starts to sing. While she plays, she notices a Henry David Thoreau quote tattooed on her forearm: “All good things are wild and free.”
Backstage, Nora gets a text from Izzy and is excited to discover they are still close. Checking her Instagram account, she realizes she has over eleven million followers, a sign that her band is more successful than she ever imagined.
A woman sits down next to her, and Nora discovers she is Joanna, their manager. As she is updating Nora on their schedule, Nora receives a call from a contact named “Ryan.” It's Ryan Bailey, she discovers, her favorite movie star from her root life, calling to chat about their breakup.
Ryan Bailey
Nora and Ryan chat on the phone, and she realizes they would never have been a good match to begin with.
A Silver Tray of Honey Cakes
Nora arrives at a hotel for a podcast taping and is greeted by a throng of fans waiting for autographs. As she signs, people tell her that her lyrics have saved their lives. One man has her sign his shoulder, telling her he will have it tattooed over as soon as she is done. Someone arrives at the hotel suite with drinks and pastries, but Nora is offered neither. In this life, she learns, she is dieting and recently out of rehab.
The Podcast of Revelations
During the podcast recording, Nora fakes her way through an emotional interview. She is surprised to learn that she has a restraining order against the very same Dan that she broke up with in her root life, as well as a song about him.
Nora steers the interview toward the comfortable territory of philosophy, and for a little while this works. She finds herself much more at ease, able to talk in generalities without belying her lack of knowledge about the details of her own life. This strategy doesn’t last—the host asks about her brother’s death, and Nora realizes the reason Joe is no longer in the band is that in this life, he didn’t make it. Ravi, she suddenly understands, thought she had been asking about “Jo” earlier, short for Joanna.
Howl
In the lyrics to “Howl,” one of Nora’s most famous songs, she addresses grief, choice, tenacity, and regret.
Love and Pain
Nora reappears in the library, telling Mrs. Elm she wants all of this to stop. Mrs. Elm counters that if the library is a manifestation of Nora’s willingness to live, its sheer existence means that she must, deep down, still want to survive.
Nora disagrees, and the library begins to rumble and shake. Mrs. Elm reminds her about the strength of her survival instinct when faced with the polar bear. Calmed, Nora agrees, and the shaking subsides. Mrs. Elm reminds Nora of the importance of perseverance by summoning a difficult memory from her past.
Equidistance
As a child, Nora had tried to impress some older kids by swimming in a dangerous river. She wound up in the current between the two banks, unsure which way to go and unable to commit to a decision. Lacking an exit strategy, she was stuck in the middle, thinking only about her equidistance to the...
(This entire section contains 1288 words.)
Unlock this Study Guide Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
sides.
Someone Else’s Dream
Nora reflects on the anecdote of the river and is surprised to learn from Mrs. Elm that her brother had tried to jump in after her. She ultimately hadn’t needed him to save her, but the new knowledge that he tried soothes some of her anxieties about their relationship.
As she contemplates the unevenness of her parents’ relationship with their children, Nora takes a close look at her jealousy of her brother. Her parents encouraged him more than they did her, she acknowledges, and that had a detrimental effect on Nora’s relationships with her parents and with her brother.
Thinking back on the versions of life she has explored so far, Nora realizes they have all been more about other people’s dreams than her own. Intent on trying a new approach, she asks for another book.
A Gentle Life
Nora awakens in what she describes to Mrs. Elm as a “gentle” life. She works at a dog shelter in Bedford, sleeps well, and lives simply. She has a boyfriend named Dylan in this life, she learns. They went to school together at Hazeldene, and he now works at the dog shelter alongside her.
Why Want Another Universe If This One Has Dogs?
Nora and Dylan visit a restaurant for dinner, and Nora spots a sign in the window of String Theory. The shop is closed due to a rent increase, the note reads.
She asks Dylan if he believes in parallel universes, and the two chat about whether they might have other versions of themselves out there. Dylan, refreshingly, isn’t too worried about it. “Why want another universe if this one has dogs?” he asks, by way of an explanation.
Dinner with Dylan
At dinner, Nora and Dylan discuss their years at Hazeldene. In passing, he tells her that he recently saw their librarian, Mrs. Elm, with a nurse. Nora, startled, realizes she had been assuming that the real Mrs. Elm had been dead for years.
Last Chance Saloon
Nora and Dylan head back to Dylan’s house to watch a Ryan Bailey movie, and they split a bottle of wine. Dylan has a number of dogs, and Nora uses them as a convenient excuse to sit apart from Dylan while they watch.
Examining the wine label, Nora sees a very different life that looks awfully tempting: printed on the label is the biography of a married couple who run a vineyard out in California. This is enough, it turns out, for her to disintegrate yet again.
Analysis
Perhaps more than any other section, this set of chapters reveals the complexities of Nora’s relationship with her brother, Joe. When she has a chance to rediscover what life might have been like if she hadn’t backed out of their band, Nora encounters a difficult contradiction. The obstacle to this life was always her anxiety. When it prevents her from signing their record deal, Joe, a dedicated musician, is heartbroken, as the band was his dream more than it ever was hers. In the wake of this decision, they became estranged.
By experiencing what that life might have looked like if she had committed to the band, Nora now realizes the indirect impact her anxiety had on her brother. Their band, the Labyrinths, are successful, and Nora’s relationship with Joe never fell apart, but Joe still doesn’t get to live his dream. The lifestyle of a rock star, it turns out, was enough to kill him.
The final chapter of this section, “Last Chance Saloon,” demonstrates an important moment for Nora’s personal growth. When she disappears from Dylan’s house after seeing the label on the wine bottle, the shift in her motivations that began in Svalbard continues: Nora returns to the library because she has consciously chosen something else that she would like to explore. Compared to her passivity in her root life, this represents the development of a new, crucial sense of agency. Nora is now actively making decisions that directly contribute to her own potential happiness.
