From the books
Teachings
What the people of the Farbound Union teach each other: a parent at a desk, an aunt at a bench, a rule older than anyone’s grandmother. Each line is quoted from the novels.
These quotations include later chapters and may reveal story context. Choose a book to show its teachings; close the disclosure to hide them again.
DISSONANCE
Show teachings from DISSONANCE (includes later chapters)
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We move. We don’t take. So we pay.
A saying Solène gives Kwame; the paying is “the half nobody painted on a wall”
Chapter 22. Boilers Don’t Ring
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A mark can be anyone’s, and a full name is a door you can’t close.
Margaux’s father, at his desk, when she was nine
Chapter 19. The Linen Under His Name
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Draw the foot and the floor draws itself.
Janelle Mouton’s aunt, for the bench book
Chapter 3. Deck Boots, Day Nine
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Rubber lied about its size until it was glued.
Janelle’s aunt, and the finger’s-width margin she taught
Chapter 3. Deck Boots, Day Nine
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Listen to a sick person’s chest, for the thing under the sound.
Yvonne, to Solène
Chapter 4. Fried Mullet, Boiled
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As if it might be lying.
How Margaux’s mother taught her to look at each line of a ledger
Chapter 8. The Care Row
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The Lake lied on the first pull.
Consuelo Mayorga’s father, on reading the water
Chapter 11. Twenty-Six and a Hair
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The first fish of the run was not for catching.
Consuelo’s father, a rule or not
Chapter 11. Twenty-Six and a Hair
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Letters and sums and the catechism, in that order.
Sister Aurélie, to fifty-two children in the old choir vestry
Chapter 67. Ward 19
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Treated as not existing. By whom.
Orise, answering the Counter the way her mother taught her to answer anything from the ridge
Chapter 71. Treated as Not Existing
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People would fill a silence.
What Margaux’s mother taught her about waiting
Chapter 81. The File
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What was handed over, by whom, to whom, on what day, and what the person signing knew at the time.
Cora, writing a receipt the way she was taught; the last part “is the part most receipts leave out”
Chapter 84. Cora’s Account
The Fourth Rail
Show teachings from The Fourth Rail (includes later chapters)
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You pick the crab up by the edge of its shell, never by the tail, and set it down facing the water.
What the children of the yard towns are taught
Chapter 4. Horseshoe Crabs
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Everything holds if you let it take the floor.
Rubén’s mother, who taught him the old harbor dances
Chapter 14. The Dog Dance
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You wash what you use.
The hall’s rule, “older than anyone’s grandmother”
Chapter 28. A Quarter-Bell Late
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No time to believe in anything that did not help a child carry a one.
Aven, who teaches arithmetic and reading to forty children
Chapter 31. The Other Side of the Account
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Salt spray on a burn is a thing you learn about once.
The harbor crossing
Chapter 48. The Second Try
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Twice, the way he’d taught her, which meant your turn.
Ruth’s knock on the wall, from a card game a neighbor taught her
Chapter 74. The Block
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A key is held while its gate is open and freed when the gate is shut.
The rule of the nine locks under the river
Chapter 79. Nine Locks Under the River
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The brant came the week the bass went.
A grandfather’s saying, repeated by his son at the fish table
Chapter 90. Brant
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You do not say we until the other one does, and then you may.
Ona’s rule for letters
Chapter 95. Sera’s School
The reading behind the books
Robert Greene’s books and Paul Kleinman’s Philosophy 101 influenced the novel’s questions about power, desire, strategy and meaning. The characters’ choices are their own, not demonstrations that any one account is true.
Read the openings