Strange Sally Diamond

The narrative flashes back to the year 1974. This chapter is told through the perspective of a child named Peter, who is kept locked in his room for most of each day. His father dotes on him but is often absent, and when other noises in the house frighten Peter, his father tells him that the sounds are made by a ghost. Peter has never experienced the world outside his house directly. All that he knows of the outside world comes from the images he sees on television. For Peter’s seventh birthday, his dad takes him to the zoo. Peter is in awe of the real human beings he sees around him for the first time. Peter asks his father about women, and his father tells him that women are bad. When Peter asks his father if he has a mother, his father tells him that his mother is a ghost who lives in the padlocked room next to Peter’s.

The narrative returns to Sally’s present-day perspective. She opens her father’s final letter to her, which tells the story of her background. Thomas’s letter to Sally relates that she was born with the name of Mary Norton.