Ironweed

Dressed in a stolen kimono, Helen sings in her hotel room as she contemplates a painting of a swan that “was, was.” She reflects on her failed aspirations to become a classical pianist, which were cut short when her father committed suicide, leaving Helen’s mother to remove Helen from Vassar, a liberal arts school, in order to send Helen’s brother to law school.

The narrative goes back to the night before. In Finny’s car, Helen allows Finny to have sex with her, though he, exhausted, fails to ejaculate. Helen doesn’t sleep, instead getting lost in memory. In the morning, feeling pain from a tumor in her stomach, she hums “Te Deum” on her way to a nearby church that’s holding an All Saints’ Day service. A man in one of the pews reminds her of a classical conductor she once saw conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; excerpts from the text of the symphony’s final choral movement, based on Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” are interspersed throughout the chapter.

Helen reflects on her relationship with her mother. After caring for her for a decade, Helen discovered a lost will leaving her half of her father’s inheritance 21 years too late. Helen abandoned her mother the same day, and her mother was transferred to a public nursing home, where she died.