56 pages • 1 hour read
Brain Damage
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Prologue-Chapter 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of graphic violence, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.
Prologue Summary
The narrator, Charlotte, is in her upscale New York City apartment. She reflects on her work as a doctor and the suffering she has witnessed in patients with gunshot wounds, contrasting their pain with her privileged existence. She recalls the moment when a gun was pointed at her in her apartment, and she was shot in the head. Noting that the bullet passed through her skull without causing physical pain, she concludes that the real hurt wasn’t the shooting itself, but everything that came after.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Two Years Before”
The novel flashes back to two years before she’s shot. At her dermatology clinic, Charlotte diagnoses a patient, Stanley Leroy, with a fungal infection, offering medical advice, reassurance, and a prescription for fungicide.
Her next patient is Clark Douglas, a handsome attorney. After she examines a benign mole, he asks her on a date. Citing professional ethics, Charlotte declines. He persists, asking if he can try again in three months, once he’s no longer her patient. Believing that she’ll never hear from him again, she agrees.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Two Years Before”
That evening, Charlotte returns to her apartment and her cat, Kitty. Her mother interrupts her quiet dinner, calling to nag Charlotte about being single. Charlotte firmly ends her mother’s matchmaking attempt.
