payment page
Summary: God and Other Librarians
Back in the library, Nora confronts Mrs. Elm and asks her who she really is. Mrs. Elm gives no definitive answers. She points out that Nora used to want to die and now she doesn’t. The Book of Regrets is getting lighter. Nora thinks of Hugo’s advice to dream big, and she decides to visit the life in which she didn’t give up music.
Summary: Fame
Nora slides into her life and finds herself on stage during a performance. She’s with The Labyrinths, but her brother isn’t onstage. Ravi is still the drummer. It’s time to do an encore, but Nora doesn’t know any of their songs. She suggests doing a cover of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Ravi resists because he says they always do “Howl.”
Summary: Milky Way
She feels the crowd pointing all their energy toward her, and as they roar in approval, Nora feels their power, which gives her strength.
Summary: Wild and Free
Performing in front of a crowd that adores her, Nora feels even more alive than she did when she was an Olympic swimmer. She notices that she has a tattoo from Thoreau reading “All good things are wild and free.” Nora gets a text from Izzy and is happy that they’re close in this life. She sees that she has millions of Instagram followers and looks amazing when she sees herself in the mirror. She gets a call from the actor Ryan Bailey.
Summary: Ryan Bailey
Nora is starstruck to be on a video call with Ryan Bailey. In their conversation, Nora realizes that they have dated in the past and are now broken up. She’s proud of herself for dumping him. Nora sees a post of hers that says, “You can have everything and feel nothing.” The post has nearly half a million likes.
Summary: A Silver Tray of Honey Cakes
Nora meets with a throng of adoring fans, signs autographs, and talks to them about her music and her love life. Everywhere she goes, people watch her. She goes to her palatial hotel suite, where she meets a podcaster named Marcelo for an interview.
Summary: The Podcast of Revelations
Nora learns a lot about herself in this life through the interviewer. Marcelo lists difficult things that have happened to Nora. She learns that Dan started stalking her, and she had to get a restraining order against him. She learns that she’s been to rehab, had a manager that stole money from her, and has been embroiled in a lawsuit. He paints a picture of a life surrounded by tragedy and trauma. She says fame feels like being slapped and kissed at the same time. Then Marcelo tries to talk about her brother. Marcelo says that Joe was a big part of her life, and Nora realizes that in this life Joe is dead. He died of an overdose two years prior. Soon after learning this, Nora goes back to the library.
Summary: ‘Howl’
This section features the lyrics to The Labyrinths’ song “Howl,” which paint a portrait of grief, anger, and regret.
Analysis
These sections go deeper into the theme of the illusory nature of success. As a rock star, Nora discovers she has incredible, intoxicating power. She has legions of fans who hang on her every word. Though she often writes poems or shares on social media in her other lives, in this life, each post has an impact on her followers, who even get her words tattooed on their bodies. She is initially enamored of her own celebrity, and as in her life as an Olympian, she feels a sense of personal power, as though her fame is proof that she’s capable of more than she’s ever known. However, off-stage, Nora quickly learns that this success is as hollow and lonely as her Olympian life. The fame has made her a lightning rod for controversy, and she’s managed her mental health issues by turning to drugs and alcohol. What’s more, fame, which was always Joe’s dream, ended up causing his demise. Though Nora has a certain power from fame and is surrounded by the impersonal adoration of fans, she is essentially alone and depressed. Her success doesn’t save her from grief or loss.
The character of Ryan Bailey represents the lure of fantasy and the unpredictability of desire. In nearly every life Nora visits, her celebrity crush Ryan Bailey has a presence, whether it’s through watching his movies or reading interviews with him. Nora fantasizes about Ryan Bailey, imagining having deep conversations about philosophy with him, creating an intricate story about who he is based on his appearance and his acting. Because Nora doesn’t know Ryan Bailey in her root life, these fantasies are a projection of who she wants Ryan Bailey to be, much like Nora the Rockstar’s fans project their desires and needs onto her. When Nora does have a conversation with Ryan Bailey, she realizes that the image she’s created of him in her head is just a fantasy. In reality, they don’t connect on an intellectual level. He seems to be not very bright, admitting that his professed love for philosophy was probably a lie to appease the press. He even calls the renowned existentialist Martin Heidegger “Martin Hot Dog.” This suggests that fantasy, like regret, is often based on ideas that may or may not be true, and reality is frequently unpredictable.
Written in the wake of her brother’s death, Nora the Rockstar’s song “Howl” is a powerful exploration of both the burdens of fame and the ferocity of grief. The song is evocative of Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that goodnight,” a funereal poem that urges the poet’s dying father to fight to stay alive, to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” “Howl” has a similar message, urging her brother and herself to “howl into the light… howl to make it right… howl howl.” But instead of encouraging her brother to stay alive, Nora writes to him when he is already gone. She rages at his death and at a world that looks frightening and false without him. Throughout her life, Nora experiences many deaths and losses, from the death of specific dreams to the loss of the people she loves the most. This song articulates the rage and pain of that grief, and, like Thomas’ poem, suggests the power of fighting against death rather than succumbing to despair.
