Jane receives a call from her former boss Kato and writes a flashy pitch for a new TV show called My American Wife!

A veteran at the show's first shoot in Arkansas refuses to accept Jane as a genuine American citizen.

Fred Flowers confesses to an affair on camera during the filming of Suzie Flowers' episode.

Director Mr. Oda suffers anaphylactic shock after eating steroid-laced meat from a wife's recipe, opening the door for Jane to direct.

Jane uses her first directing opportunity to feature a Latinx family, the Martinezes, far outside the show's stated specifications.

The Martinez episode earns excellent ratings, giving Jane continued directing opportunities despite John Ueno's objections.

John Ueno gets Jane drunk on a work trip and attempts to rape her before she escapes by invoking his job responsibilities.

Jane researches the history of the growth hormone DES and begins to understand the true dangers of the meat industry she is promoting.

Jane makes an impromptu visit to her mother in Minnesota, who immediately suspects Jane is pregnant.

Jane and her crew are arrested for trespassing in Montana, and Jane uses her phone call to tell Sloan she is pregnant.

Jane arrives at the Dunn feedlot in Texas and accidentally gets the abortifacient chemical Lutalyse on her hands.

A surging cow carcass knocks Jane unconscious during filming at a Texas slaughterhouse.

Jane wakes in a hospital bed and learns she has suffered a miscarriage.

Dave picks Jane up from the hospital and hands her the secretly preserved copies of the Dunn feedlot footage.

Jane's documentary is broadcast nationally, exposes Gale Dunn's illegal hormone ring, and directly leads to John Ueno's demotion.

Jane Takagi-Little, a struggling Japanese-American documentarian, lands a coordinator role on a TV show called My American Wife! that promotes American meat to Japanese audiences. Through persistence and a lucky break when the show's director is hospitalized, Jane earns the chance to direct episodes that are diverse, authentic, and emotionally resonant. Her growing success puts her in direct conflict with John Ueno, the show's corporate overseer, who harasses and then attempts to assault her on a work trip. Jane's investigation into the meat industry deepens when she visits a Texas feedlot and is accidentally exposed to dangerous chemicals, culminating in a devastating slaughterhouse accident that costs her both her pregnancy and her job. A secretly preserved set of footage allows her to complete a groundbreaking solo documentary exposing the industry's darkest practices. The film goes national, destroys John Ueno's career, and launches Jane's.

Jane's rise and fall — and breakthrough — as a documentary filmmaker.

Akiko watches Suzie Flowers dump Coca-Cola on a pot roast on television and admires Suzie's uncomplicated approach to life.

Suzie Flowers buries her head in her comforter and cries after Fred's on-air affair confession derails the filming.

John Ueno rages at Akiko for giving Suzie Flowers' episode a low rating of three out of ten.

John informs Akiko that she will now be solely responsible for purchasing his specific brand of condoms.

Jane proposes an episode about the Beaudroux family, who have twelve children — ten adopted from Korea — and celebrate at a local Pig Festival.

Akiko, moved by the Beaudroux episode, goes out and buys all the music CDs featured on its soundtrack.

John forces Akiko to see a doctor, who immediately identifies her as bulimic and shames her for the condition.

The white couple from Tennessee earns poor ratings, handing creative control of the show back to Jane.

Jane selects the Bukowsky family — whose daughter Christina was struck and severely injured by a Wal-Mart truck — for the next episode.

Akiko purchases Australian lambchops from a butcher to test Christina Bukowsky's recipe for John.

John, drunk, knocks Akiko's carefully prepared lambchops to the floor and shoves her into the television set.

Akiko discovers her period has returned after years of absence caused by her eating disorder.

Dyann and Lara help Akiko find and furnish a new apartment in America after she flees her marriage.

Akiko writes a letter to John Ueno stating plainly that she will never come back to him.

Suzie Flowers finally reaches Jane by phone to thank her, saying the My American Wife episode actually saved her marriage.

Akiko Ueno begins the story as a timid, bulimic woman trapped in an abusive marriage to John, who forces her to watch and review My American Wife! in the hope it will inspire her to eat more and conceive. Each episode she watches chips away at her passivity, while at home John's behavior escalates from verbal cruelty to physical violence. Small, private victories — like her period returning — quietly signal that her body and sense of self are beginning to recover. After Jane's investigation reaches a crisis point and Akiko herself is hospitalized, she makes her escape to America, where strangers from the show she once watched help her build a new life from scratch. She finds an apartment, reconnects with the Beaudroux family, and severs all ties with John. The book closes with Akiko fully in charge of her own choices for the first time.

Akiko's quiet transformation from abused wife to independent woman.

Jane reflects on her biracial identity as both the reason she was hired and the barrier preventing her from directing.

Jane meets Sloan in person for the first time at a Nebraska motel bar, where he is disguised as a local commissioner.

Jane films Dyann and Lara, an interracial lesbian couple, while worrying their vegetarianism will get her episode killed.

Akiko watches the Dyann and Lara episode and realizes she could leave John entirely once she has a child of her own.

Jane hypothesizes that DES prescribed to her mother during pregnancy is the cause of Jane's own adult infertility.

Jane's mother reveals she had to have a hysterectomy after Jane's difficult birth, giving up any chance of more children.

Jane decides not to abort her baby and reveals her pregnancy to her film crew during a celebratory night out.

Akiko secretly faxes a letter to Jane asking for advice on how to escape her abusive marriage.

John Ueno intercepts a fax Jane sent Akiko advising her to leave an abusive relationship, then beats Akiko and takes her belongings.

John Ueno rapes Akiko and leaves her bleeding on the floor before passing out drunk.

Crew footage played in slow motion reveals that five-year-old Rosie has developed breasts and that Gale Dunn is molesting her.

Bunny Dunn drugs her family with sleeping pills and secretly allows Jane to film Rosie's premature physical development on camera.

Akiko confides to nurse Tomoko that John raped her and that she believes she has become pregnant as a result.

Akiko shows Tomoko a positive pregnancy test and declares she wants to raise her child in America as an American.

Jane tracks Sloan down at a Memphis club, the two reconcile with tears and an apology, and discuss getting married.

From the novel's opening, a series of private revelations and decisive turning points steadily redirect the lives of both Jane and Akiko. Jane's complicated biracial identity, her unexpected romance with Sloan, and an unplanned pregnancy force her to reckon with questions about fertility, family, and her own history of DES exposure. Meanwhile, John Ueno's abuse escalates from interception and intimidation to rape, putting Akiko in the hospital and setting her escape into motion. The discovery of slow-motion footage revealing Rosie Dunn's premature development transforms Jane's documentary project from a personal obsession into something with genuine public stakes. Both women reach their lowest points simultaneously — Jane hospitalized after the slaughterhouse accident, Akiko hospitalized after the rape — before each begins a separate but parallel recovery. Akiko ends the book pregnant and free, having confided in a trusted nurse and chosen her own future. Jane ends it reconciled with Sloan, newly celebrated as a filmmaker, and finally at peace with who she is.