47 pages • 1 hour read
A Ladder to the Sky
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Part 2, Interlude 2-Part 3, Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of physical and emotional abuse, alcohol addiction, death by suicide, and death.
Part 2: “The Tribesman” - Part 3: “Other People’s Stories”
Part 2, Interlude 2 Summary: “The Threatened Animal”
At the New York office of Stori magazine, editor Maurice Swift is in a meeting with an irate writer, Henrietta James, when he gets a call from the school attended by his seven-year-old son, Daniel. Maurice leaves for the school immediately. While there, the principal informs Maurice that Daniel slapped a classmate, Jupiter Dell, after Jupiter kissed him. Maurice agrees to a counseling session for Daniel and explains that his son was born via a surrogate after his wife Edith’s death.
The incident triggers a flashback to Maurice’s school days, where he manipulated a classmate, Henry Rowe, by trading sexual favors for stories about his family’s experiences in Belfast. In the present, the counseling session is successful. Afterward, at a bookstore, Maurice discovers a new biography of Dash Hardy containing a disparaging anecdote about him.
Later, in a park, Maurice and Daniel run into Henrietta James. She smugly informs Maurice she has already sold the story he rejected. When Henrietta touches Daniel’s hair, the boy growls at her. After asking her to take a photograph of them, Maurice goes home and begins reading new submissions for the magazine, planning to mine them for story ideas.
