Summary
The narrative switches into Harold's voice. He describes how his son, Jacob, was four when he began to display symptoms of serious illness. He was eventually diagnosed with a rare neurogenerative disorder and died at age 5, about a year after he started exhibiting symptoms. After the loss of their son, the marriage between Harold and his first wife quietly deteriorates, and they divorce. Liesl moves to the West Coast, and she and Harold only meet up sixteen years later. By then, both have remarried, and Liesl has had another child; Harold tells her about how he has adopted Jude. Liesl and Harold do not keep in close contact, but Harold feels that the two of them have an unbreakable bond because they produced a child together. Reflecting on his experience of getting to know Jude and adopting him, Harold admits that he has always wanted to know more about Jude's childhood and history. Several people have told Harold to stop pestering Jude with questions since Jude is notoriously private about his past.
Harold reflects on how challenging and frustrating he found it to know that Jude believed himself to be a bad and undeserving person, and to be unable to prove otherwise. After the incident with Caleb, Harold feels sad and guilty about not being able to help Jude more. The next day, he goes to Jude's apartment to apologize, and he sees the effects of the violent attack by Caleb. Harold rushes Jude to an appointment with Andy, who is horrified by Jude's condition. After Jude is hospitalized, Harold cleans up his apartment and makes up an excuse for why Jude will be off work. Harold also throws out the bag with the supplies Jude uses when he cuts himself. Harold had first found out about Jude's cutting about seven years earlier when a plumber found a bag with cutting supplies in the bathroom where Jude usually stayed. Harold was very angry with Jude for this behavior, and since then, he always tries to find and remove the bags from wherever Jude lives or regularly visits. However, Jude simply replaces them, and Harold has to had to live with the knowledge that Jude continues to self-harm.
Jude has severe injuries from Caleb's attack, and Harold stays with him for a week, helping to take care of him. The two of them lie to Willem, claiming that Jude has been mildly injured in a car accident. Because of the constant care he receives from Harold, Andy, and other friends, Jude makes a full recovery, but Harold reflects that the incident with Caleb reduced Jude's ability to trust even those who loved him most. Harold wishes Caleb could have been forced to retract all the negative things he said about Jude because Jude used this abusive relationship as a way to fuel his negative self-perception and self-loathing.
The narrative turns back to Jude's childhood history. While living at the monastery, Jude began to spend a lot of time in the greenhouse with Brother Luke. Luke is the first person ever to praise Jude and make him feel special, so Jude quickly becomes very vulnerable. Over time, the other monks become more cruel and abusive towards him, and Jude begins to fear that they will send him away. Brother Luke tells him that Jude deserves to be happy, and he begins to tell Jude stories about the happy life they could have if they left the monastery. After a few months, Luke makes Jude promise that he would be willing to run away with him: by this point, Jude is very invested in pleasing Luke. Shortly before Jude's ninth birthday, the two of them secretly flee from the monastery together.
Luke and Jude change their clothes and hair in order to be less recognizable, and they drive to Texas. They stay in a motel and live in an isolated way while Luke looks for a place where they can build a cabin. When Luke confides that he is having trouble with money, Jude tries to be helpful by offering to get a job so that he can earn money for them. However, Jude is horrified when Luke decides that he will start bringing men back to the motel to have sex with Jude in exchange for money. Jude agrees because he loves Brother Luke and wants to please him, but the experience is very traumatic for him. They spend months traveling around Texas, staying at different motels, while Jude is forced to have sex with strange men over and over. Brother Luke also begins having sex with Jude himself, which makes Jude even more confused and ashamed. They eventually begin to drive through other states; Jude gradually comes to realize that they will never build a cabin and that there is no end in sight to the requirement that he will keep having sex for money.
When Jude is 10 or 11, he begins to throw himself down stairs and into walls. The physical pain provides a sense of release for him and helps him cope with the horrors of what he is living through. Luke doesn't like this behavior, so he teaches Jude how to cut himself, which Jude begins to do regularly. Jude can see no escape from a life of sexual abuse and is totally dependent on Brother Luke. When Jude is twelve, while the two of them are in a motel in Montana, the room is raided by the police. Brother Luke has enough time to realize what is happening, and he flees to the bathroom and hangs himself. Jude is taken first to a hospital, and then to a group home. He feels shame, isolation, and a longing for Brother Luke, who had still been the only person to ever show kindness to him.
The narrative gives Jude's perspective on his recovery from being attacked by Caleb. Jude is tormented by the shame that Harold and Andy know what happened to him and were required to help him. He is also suffering from flashbacks and other symptoms of psychological trauma. As a result, he works non-stop to try to keep himself distracted. In the months after the attack, while Willem is back in New York, he notices Jude's strange and jumpy behavior and begins to suspect that there is someone Jude is frightened of. Although Willem doesn't know what happened, he begins to stay at Jude's apartment, which helps Jude to begin to feel calmer. However, Willem eventually leaves again to film his next movie, and Jude's condition deteriorates as soon as he is alone. He begins to seriously consider killing himself because he cannot stand being tormented by memories of what Caleb did to him. Once Jude has a plan in place, he begins to seem calmer to those around him, and Harold is reassured because he thinks Jude is starting to get better. Alone in his apartment, about a year after Caleb's attack, Jude cuts his wrists.
After the suicide attempt, Jude awakens in the hospital, where all of his friends and family come to visit him regularly. Because of a miscommunication, someone had unexpectedly arrived at his apartment after he fainted from blood loss, while he was still alive. He was rushed to the hospital and survived. Jude is kept at the hospital for a long time in hopes he will open up or consider therapy, but when he remains insistent on not doing so, he is released, at which point he goes to stay with Harold and Julia, along with Willem. They provide constant care to him. Jude has a long stretch of time off from work, and with Willem staying in New York, the two of them plan a trip to Morocco for December. Jude begins to be tormented by nightmares in which he screams the name of Brother Luke, and Willem begs Jude to tell him about what happened during his childhood. Jude expresses willingness to do so, but he is overwhelmed, not knowing where to start. Willem offers to ask some questions so that Jude can begin to reveal some of his past, piece by piece.
Analysis
The narrative pauses at a moment of suspense: Jude has just been attacked by Caleb, and readers are concerned about his well-being. Instead of immediately continuing with this plot, the author turns back to the narrative in Harold's voice. In this section, Harold goes into greater detail about the tragic loss of his son, and also about how he longs for a deeper connection with Jude. The two themes seem to be linked in that Jude functions as a kind of surrogate child for Harold, and therefore Harold wants to know him with all of the intimacy he would have if he had nurtured him since he was a baby. However, as this section reveals, Harold's loss is different from Jude's trauma, and therefore the two of them will connect in different ways. While Harold is hurt by both Jude's stubborn refusal to open up and Jude's persistent lack of self-esteem, he does not abandon Jude. Harold's choice to go to Jude's apartment the day after their dinner symbolizes his unwavering love for Jude and refusal to walk away from him. On this particular day, his loyalty literally saves Jude's life, but throughout the novel, Harold's love symbolically saves Jude from being completely alienated.
The attack by Caleb wreaks havoc on Jude's body, which is ironic because up until this point, his injuries have been self-inflicted. Harold and Andy both function as surrogate parents in the way they ensure Jude receives medical care, and they also protect his reputation. Their choice to preserve Jude's privacy by lying to his employer about what happened makes sense: Jude needs to be seen as strong and invincible in order to succeed in his aggressive work environment. The choice to lie to Willem about what happened is more complex. Andy and Harold know how humiliated Jude is by what happened, and they want to give him some of his dignity and control back. As a victim of the beating and sexual assault, Jude lost all of his agency, and Harold and Andy want to restore some of that to him by letting him choose what he discloses. However, this choice leads to Willem being kept in the dark for years and only eventually finding out the truth in a damaging way.
The attack by Caleb shakes loose the trauma living in Jude's psyche. While he has certainly suffered symptoms of trauma, he has been able to remain fairly stable because of his professional success and his many close and loving relationships. His interactions with Caleb are triggering because they closely mirror the abuse he suffered as a child. Paradoxically, Jude tolerates the abuse because it feels familiar to him and affirms his understanding of himself as worthless. The abuse is also especially damaging because of how it aligns with what Jude has already suffered. Just as the events with Caleb propel Jude back into his past, this event is also what triggers the reader to learn the full details of what happened to Jude as a child.
Jude's abuse and betrayal by Brother Luke are particularly damaging because they occur when he is young and in the process of forming his identity. This leaves him with a lifelong sense of feeling tainted and damaged. Jude's difficulty with trusting others also stems from the way Luke seemingly showed him love and care only to betray him in the worst possible way. The sexual aspects of Jude's abuse explain why he is so resistant to physical intimacy and hint at why he takes out his emotional pain by damaging his body. Jude's body fills him with self-loathing memories and therefore he sometimes wants to cut it away from him, or disassociate himself from the body that has caused him so much pain and shame. Although Jude tries to cope in the aftermath of what happened with Caleb, he cannot regain the ability to function. Jude's suffering seems to be exacerbated by his refusal to seek help or share what happened. Jude's need to disclose is a reoccurring theme, as many characters urge him to share what he has experienced with a mental health professional, or at least with some of the people close to him. However, Jude feels ashamed of what has happened, and he assumes that anyone who hears what happened will blame him for it.
Jude's suicide attempt shows how extensively the relationship with Caleb reactivated his past trauma. The experience would have been horrifying for anyone, but because Jude had not healed from what had already happened to him, he was particularly vulnerable and had difficulty displaying resilience. Jude's suicide attempt may seem like a betrayal of the many people who love him, but it is the only tool he has to cope with the pain. Jude's relationship with Caleb seems to confirm to him that the world is not a good place, that he cannot trust people, and that if he stays alive, he is simply going to be subjected to cruelty and degradation over and over. However, the suicide attempt does embolden Willem to become more direct in trying to find out things about Jude's past. By this point, Jude trusts Willem enough that he is willing to at least consider sharing some details about his past.
