Jimmy’s extreme experience with the thugs shakes him out of his passivity. He understands that he is an adult, capable of taking decisive actions. Now that Jolanda is safe and Mieke has offered to have a baby with him, Jimmy decides to pursue fatherhood. He also decides to get Seigfried the dog for which the child has been pining. Jimmy pretends that he wrote to his mother, Honor, about Seigfried and that Honor sent a dog with Chantal to gift to the boy. Armed with the story, he brings Hard Rain home. Irmgard reluctantly gives in to keeping Hard Rain for Siegfried. The dog immediately takes to Irmgard, licking her face.

Claude and Chantal too take to each other, as Jimmy had hoped, immediately pursuing a romantic relationship and deciding to get married soon. Meanwhile, having a companion in Hard Rain, Siegfried stops mutilating his toys and becomes far more affectionate.

Mieke arrives in Vienna. In Jimmy’s room, Mieke sleeps between him and Jolanda. She and Jimmy make love, though Jolanda tells Jimmy not to cuddle Mieke too long afterwards. After three nights, Mieke tells Jimmy and Jolanda that she never wants to do this again but will do so if she doesn’t get pregnant in this cycle. Jimmy feels awful that Mieke is doing something she cannot bear, but Mieke tells him the sex was not unbearable, she just happens not to be attracted to men.

Soon, to secure their legal rights and ensure Jimmy has an airtight case against the draft, Jimmy and Mieke apply for a marriage license so they can get married in a civil ceremony in Amsterdam. As Jimmy’s year in Vienna draws to a close, Claude and Chantal plan to move to Paris. On one of the last weekends in Vienna, the three roommates take Siegfried and Hard Rain to the park.

In the park a movie is being shot, involving a scene with a telescope. Siegfried asks Claude what the telescope does. Claude explains, but he confuses the German word for “the distance” for the “future,” making Siegfried believe he can see into the future with the telescope. A frightened Siegfried cries out, “Not the future!” (325). Siegfried is so rattled by the idea of looking into the future that he takes to sleeping in Claude’s bed. The roommates all leave their doors open so Siegfried and Hard Rain can move in and out as they please. Soon, the friends say goodbye to each other and Siegfried.

Jimmy arrives in Amsterdam for his civil ceremony, where Jolanda tells him joyfully that Mieke is pregnant. According to Jolanda, Mieke is taking the marrying Jimmy part so seriously she won’t even sleep with Jolanda till after her marriage ceremony. Jolanda’s parents, and Claude and Chantal, have all arrived in town for the marriage. After the ceremony, Jimmy, Jolanda, and Mieke pick the name “Vienna” for the coming baby if she is a girl, after the place of her conception.

Jimmy flies back home to the US. On the plane back, he changes one major detail about Teacher Tom, turning him into a married family man. Jimmy knows the source of the revision is his own impending fatherhood. Now that Jimmy is to be a father, he also begins to understand Honor’s protectiveness of him. He reflects on the fact that even unconventional parents want “normal” children because normal is safer, yet it is also true that the more unconventional the child, the greater the parents’ fear—and thus, love—for them.

At Boston airport, the Winslow sisters give Jimmy a somber welcome. Faith tells Jimmy the news his mother and aunts have been keeping from him: Both Thomas and Connie are in the hospital. 83-year-old Thomas had a stroke, which left his right side paralyzed. Although Thomas cannot speak any longer, he understands everything perfectly. Connie, the same age as Thomas, slipped in the bathroom, fractured her hip, and hit her head on the tub, suffering a brain-bleed. Connie is comatose and dying, though Thomas could last for years.

Though the Winslows have been stuck by tragedy, they tackle life with their usual mix of talkativeness and curiosity. Back home, Honor tells Jimmy that she knows that he has been writing to Esther and gives him the latest letter from his birth-mother.

Jimmy tells Honor and his aunts that he will read to Thomas from his first novel, The Dickens Man, when he visits him at the assisted living faculty called the Meadow. In the Meadow, Thomas and Connie share a room, the unconscious Connie lying on a bed facing Thomas.

The next day Jimmy reads to Thomas the opening chapters, which describe Teacher Tom’s classrooms as an “emotional battlefield; low comedy and pathos […] at play” (349). Teacher Tom tells his students that self-pity is overrated, much as in the works of Charles Dickens. As Jimmy reads on, the Winslow sisters gather around him as an audience. Thomas cries wordlessly, giving Jimmy a thumbs up from his left hand. When the nurse Alma describes Thomas’s show of emotions as an example of how “labile” the feelings post-stroke can be, Jimmy gets stuck on the etymology of the word, wondering what a vagina (since labile is related to labia) has to do with his grandfather’s current state. As the Winslows descend into an argument about vaginas, Alma looks mortified.

Jimmy continues to read to Thomas over the next few days. During one such reading, Thomas notices that his beloved Connie has passed away and points to Connie with the index finger of his left hand. Jimmy calls for Alma and supplies for his grandfather the catch-phrase the old man can no longer pronounce: “Right you are, Connie!” (356).

Later, Jimmy touches his forehead to Thomas and tells him he wanted him to know that he can do one thing well, which is to be a writer. Thomas grips Jimmy’s cheek with affection. After Jimmy leaves, Thomas refuses feedings and pulls out his tubes. He dies days after his beloved Connie.

Alma’s story about the romantic manner in which Thomas died for Connie impresses even the critical folk of Pennacook. The women of the town wonder if their own husbands would have died after them in the manner of Thomas. For her part, Alma is so taken with the mutual love of the Winslows and Jimmy’s reading to Thomas that she begins dropping in at their home to see how The Dickens Man is coming along. Jimmy reads the novel’s drafts to Alma in the reading room of the house. The Winslow sisters wonder if Jimmy and Alma have romantic feelings for each other, but Jimmy denies the suggestion.

Faith, Hope, and Prudence worry that now Jimmy is back in Pennacook, he will again lapse into solitude. They tell Jimmy he shouldn’t let Honor, who shuns romance, dictate his life or be his role model. Jimmy privately dislikes the way his aunts talk about his mother, but he is also bothered by the vagueness of his two mothers: Both Honor and Esther like to live in the background “like peripheral characters in a novel” (361).

When Alma starts visiting Jimmy’s room so they have privacy for their reading, both she and Jimmy know they are fueling rumors of their “affair.” Alma tells Jimmy she doesn’t mind the rumors since a young paramour will only enhance her reputation. Chantal and Claude come to Pennacook for their wedding, as do Jolanda and Mieke. Mieke is now showing, and the sight of her fills Jimmy with desire. He shares a room with her and Jolanda, confessing that his nights with them were the best in his life. As he and Mieke—both writers—discuss their works, Jolanda tries not to feel left out. Meanwhile, Arnaud, also in town to attend Chantal’s wedding, cannot hide his distaste of Jimmy’s arrangement with Mieke and Jolanda.

Vienna Winslow is born in Amsterdam in March 1965. Jimmy and Honor are present for the birth. Vienna is to stay with Mieke for the first year of her life so Mieke can breastfeed her. Back in New Hampshire, Jimmy finishes his English degree and gets a girlfriend, Maud, from whom he contracts a venereal disease. After Vienna moves to Pennacook, Jimmy enrolls for a creative writing MFA, choosing UNH over Iowa and Stanford so he and Vienna can stay close to his family.

Mieke publishes her first novel, its English version titled Thrown into Relief. By the time The Dickens Man is published in 1969, Vienna is four. Claude compares the reviews for Mieke and Jimmy’s books and notes critics describe both novels as heavily inspired by the 19th century and rich in “intertextuality.” Arnaud dies in Vietnam in 1968.

Jimmy publishes his second book, The Doctor’s Rules, in 1973, basing its protagonist on Dr. Larch. The novel is followed by Roommates in Vienna, a love triangle based on Jimmy’s relationship with Mieke and Jolanda. As Jimmy gains some fame, he talks openly about his “Dutch wife,” her lesbian partner, and the daughter they share. Jimmy’s complicated family life keeps away serious girlfriends. As Vienna grows up, Jimmy begins to understand why Esther was not particularly keen on him being raised Jewish. Being Jewish, according to Jimmy, is complicated, and perhaps Esther wanted to spare him the complications.

Esther writes regularly to Honor, telling her about the new Jewish settlements being formed in Palestine. Esther is unsure about these settlements, questioning their justification in an area where there is no security threat. She has begun to wonder if the settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, and now advocates for peace. The Winslow sisters think Esther is an uncharacteristic peace activist.

In 1981, Jimmy is invited to Jerusalem for the International Book Fair. He writes to Esther that he hopes to see her, but she remains vague as always, non-committal about a meeting date or place. Jimmy senses something is wrong with Esther, which the Winslow sisters have not told him. Recently, Esther has stopped sending pictures of herself. Faith finally confesses that Esther lost her right arm in combat three years ago.

As Jimmy prepares for his Jerusalem trip, Honor revisits the oft-cited story of Esther’s childhood and the Biblical tale of her namesake, Queen Esther. Honor also tells Jimmy that perhaps Esther will show him her Jane Eyre tattoo. Vienna tells her grandmother that a 76-year-old woman wouldn’t want to show her son such a tattoo on her torso, to which Honor replies that she does not know Esther.

Jimmy arrives at the American Colony hotel in Jerusalem, reflecting that even in his late 30s, he does not know himself. He feels neither like a Winslow nor like a person of Jewish origin. Jimmy strikes up a friendship with Anat, the editorial assistant of Yehuda, his Israeli publisher. Anat, a non-believer like Jimmy, takes him through the various religious sites of the ancient city.

As Jimmy spends more time in Jerusalem, he realizes that people are polarized in their opinions about the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. People like Gabrielle, one of Jimmy’s European publishers, argue that Israel cannot be described as “colonizing” Palestine, since Palestine does not belong just to the Palestinians. Jewish people lived in the region for centuries before their exile. Matthias, on the other hand, argues that Israel must reconcile with the Palestinian people. However, even the milder Matthias says that if the Palestinians insist on “eliminating” (393) the Israelis, Israel must kill them faster. Jimmy wonders if the “refrain […] ‘If we don’t … they will …’ was […] Israel’s constant echo?” (393).

Though Jimmy has grown up sympathetic to the Zionists who led the persecuted Jewish people from Europe to Israel, he cannot help thinking of the new Zionist settlements as racially segregated neighborhoods, a comparison which irks even the milder Matthias and Anat. Jimmy gets into trouble when he airs similar views during an interview, Anant having to call the newspaper’s editor for damage control. Jimmy learns to be careful about expressing his opinions in public.

One day, during a book signing, Jimmy meets a young soldier in line to have a copy of Roommates in Vienna signed. The soldier’s name is Seigfried Eissler. Jimmy recognizes the blonde, blue-eyed boy as none other than the son of Irmgard, the mutilator of toy soldiers. He and Siegfried shout “Hard Rain is a Woman” (398) to each other in a moment of joyous reunion. Siegfried tells Jimmy that Annelies adopted him before Irmgard died in her 40s, hence his last name. It is because of Annelies’s influence that Siegfried joined the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force. Sadly, Annelies died in an explosion in the West Bank.

Jimmy notes that his Hebrew translator has a cordial relationship with Nour, his Palestinian housekeeper, and her five-year-old son, Omar. Jimmy himself grows fond of the young Omar and feels uncomfortable when anti-Palestinian sentiments are expressed in Yakov’s parlor.

One day, Nour and Omar accompany Jimmy to the Old City, Jimmy happy to be in the company of the only Palestinian people he knows. However, as Jimmy parts from Nour and Omar at the city’s Damascus state, Nour shocks him by having Omar repeat that they will drive Israelis into the sea, and “annihilate them” (403). Jimmy realizes Nour harbors a similar hatred for the Israelis as the Israelis do for the Palestinians. He finally understands that Esther kept him away from her life in Israel to shield him from the eternal, implacable hatred between the two communities.

Jimmy is at the end of his Jerusalem tour when his birth-mother finally seeks him out. Esther has arranged for a couple of soldiers to accompany Jimmy back from a signing to the American Colony. At the signing in Jaffa, Jimmy spots a tall, one-armed, white-haired woman standing in line for autographs. When Jimmy spots Esther’s stump, a sympathy pain causes him to drop his pen. Esther jokes about pain not being genetic and lifts her polo neck jumper to show Jimmy the last couple of lines of the Jane Eyre tattoo, which she finally got.

After the signing, Jimmy watches the young IDF soldiers mill around Esther, clearly a local legend. Jimmy goes up to his mother. A journalist notices the resemblance between Esther and Jimmy and congratulates her on being the author’s mother. However, Esther grips the young man’s arm and says Jimmy is the son of a dear friend of hers, he is “Honor’s child” (407). She lets go of the soldier’s wrist and grips Jimmy’s writing hand so hard he feels the blood stop.

Jimmy knows Esther’s anonymity in his life is an act of love. He finally knows who he is—Honor’s child, a writer who has the heart of Queen Esther, his Jewish mother.