Nelson declares her love for Dodge during their first sexual encounter on the floor of his apartment.

Nelson and Dodge move in together shortly after their relationship begins.

Nelson starts caring for Dodge's three-year-old son, taking on the role of stepmother.

California's Proposition 8 debate forces Nelson and Dodge to consider the politics and meaning of same-sex marriage.

Nelson and Dodge impulsively marry at a small chapel after hearing Prop 8 is likely to pass that day.

Dodge's mother is diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, beginning a prolonged difficult period for the family.

Nelson and Dodge decide to try to have a child together.

Dodge begins testosterone injections to address his growing unhappiness with his female body.

Nelson undergoes IVF treatments in an attempt to become pregnant.

Nelson becomes pregnant with Iggy after months of fertility treatment.

Dodge undergoes a mastectomy while Nelson is four months pregnant, their physical transformations happening in tandem.

Nelson is hospitalized at 28 weeks due to a suspected life-threatening placental complication.

Dodge's terminally ill mother comes to stay with Nelson and Dodge before returning to Michigan.

Nelson gives birth to Iggy after a long and painful labor at the hospital.

Dodge sits at his mother's hospice bedside and witnesses her take her final breath.

The Argonauts begins with Maggie Nelson falling in love with Harry Dodge, a nonbinary artist, and the two quickly build a shared life in California. Their relationship deepens as Nelson steps into a stepmother role and the couple grapples with the political fight over same-sex marriage, ultimately marrying on a single impulsive afternoon. A difficult period follows when Dodge's mother receives a terminal cancer diagnosis and both partners pursue major physical transformations — Dodge through testosterone and surgery, Nelson through IVF and pregnancy. These changes unfold in parallel, with Nelson hospitalized midway through her pregnancy and Dodge undergoing his mastectomy while she carries their child. The book builds toward its emotional climax as Nelson labors to bring Iggy into the world and Dodge simultaneously keeps a vigil at his dying mother's bedside. These two events — a birth and a death — form the heart of the memoir's final pages.

The central story of love, marriage, and new life.

Nelson sends Dodge quotes from Roland Barthes and other philosophers about the shifting meanings of "I love you."

Nelson searches online for Dodge's preferred pronouns and finds existing language frustratingly inadequate.

Nelson and Dodge debate photographer Catherine Opie's self-portrait, questioning whether its domestic imagery is truly subversive.

Nelson's mother gives her a holiday mug depicting the family in a way Nelson finds uncomfortably heteronormative.

Custody of Dodge's son becomes disputed, adding strain to the family during an already difficult period.

Nelson attends a conference where Jane Gallop shows intimate photos of herself and her newborn during an academic presentation.

A colleague attacks Gallop's presentation as mediocre and soft-minded, provoking Nelson's strong intellectual defense of it.

Nelson and Dodge attend an arthouse pornographic film that stirs Nelson's sense of her own sexual identity.

Nelson and Dodge are turned away from a burlesque show by a bouncer because they have brought baby Iggy.

Nelson and Dodge watch X-Men: First Class during Dodge's surgical recovery and argue about assimilation versus revolution.

A man obsessed with Nelson's aunt's murder begins stalking Nelson and Dodge at their home.

Nelson incorporates the stalking episode into an academic presentation, reclaiming control over the frightening experience.

Nelson mentions that Iggy survived a life-threatening illness at six months old, which she declines to describe further.

A lactation consultant of Pima heritage visits after Iggy's birth and blesses the baby's name, Igasho.

Dodge seeks out his birth mother and discovers she had another son who became addicted to drugs and went to prison.

Alongside the main arc of their relationship, Nelson and Dodge navigate a series of encounters that illuminate their intellectual and personal lives. Early on, Nelson grapples with the inadequacy of language to describe Dodge and debates with him about representations of queer domesticity in art. Later, Nelson's fierce reactions to academic dismissals of maternal experience — including the public attack on Jane Gallop's presentation — reveal her commitment to reclaiming bodily and feminine knowledge. As the memoir progresses, Nelson and Dodge face threats from the outside world, including a stalker, while also navigating the joys of Iggy's arrival and the grief of Dodge's family losses. The pool also includes moments of pleasure, conflict, and intimacy — films, bars, recovery rooms — that ground the book's theoretical flights in specific, embodied experience. Together these scenes trace the texture of daily life within a queer family navigating art, politics, danger, and survival.

The scenes and encounters that shaped Nelson and Dodge's world.

Nelson's confidence in language is shaken when she realizes no available pronoun can adequately describe Dodge's nonbinary identity.

Dodge challenges Nelson directly, asking why she has never written about the queer aspects of their life together.

Nelson researches the story of literary couple George and Mary Oppen to find hope during a hard stretch in her relationship.

Dodge reads an early draft of The Argonauts and tells Nelson he feels "unbeheld" and "unheld" by her portrayal.

Nelson privately confronts her anxiety about Dodge's impending physical transition and fears about how he might change.

Nelson's former professor Christina Crosby tells Nelson she feels repulsion toward Nelson's interest in making the personal public.

Nelson discovers that being pregnant with a male child makes the felt distinction between male and female bodies dissolve.

A male academic questions Nelson publicly about whether her book The Art of Cruelty is suitable work for a pregnant woman.

Nelson reflects on her fear of being unable to breastfeed, connected to Kaja Silverman's theory of the finite mother.

Nelson acknowledges her past alcohol dependency as evidence of the impossibility of total self-reliance.

Nelson confronts her childhood resentment of her mother, rooted in her parents' divorce and her father's subsequent death.

Nelson meets Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick at a seminar and is unsettled when Sedgwick asks everyone to choose a totem animal.

Nelson recognizes that she can find pleasure in identities and obligations she cannot easily escape, like being a wife and mother.

Nelson reflects on her postpartum body, finding it feels unexpectedly fragile and quivery rather than invincible after giving birth.

Nelson directly addresses Iggy in her writing at the book's close, overcoming her earlier fear of involving him in language.

This pool traces the key moments of self-discovery and emotional reckoning that drive Nelson's inner life throughout the memoir. Early on, Nelson's faith in language as a tool for truth is destabilized by Dodge's very existence, and the two clash over her responsibility to write honestly about their shared life. Nelson also faces hard truths about her own psychology — her fear of commitment, her unresolved grief over her parents' divorce and her father's death, and her complicated relationship to dependency and self-reliance. As her pregnancy progresses, Nelson experiences unexpected revelations about her body, her sexuality, and what it means to be vulnerable rather than invincible. The pool moves through Nelson's encounters with key intellectual figures like Sedgwick and Crosby, whose influence shaped her thinking about identity and the limits of the personal made public. It ends with Nelson's hard-won decision to address Iggy directly in her writing — an act of faith in language, love, and connection.