Summary
The narrative resumes five years after Jude and Willem moved in together. Jude has a weekly ritual of taking a long walk on Sundays. The two of them still live together, even though their careers have progressed, and they are now much more financially stable. Shortly before Willem's thirtieth birthday, he was cast in a very successful play, and when he was thirty-one, Willem quit his job as a server to devote himself to acting full-time. Jude is two years younger than his friends, so he is about to turn thirty, while the others are thirty-two. In addition to his work as a lawyer, Jude spends his Saturdays tutoring a young boy named Felix. Jude had asked Malcolm's father about possibly introducing him to prospective tutoring clients, fibbing that he is saving up for a down payment. Jude has an awkward relationship with Felix, but he feels affection for the boy, especially when Felix confides in him about his loneliness and lack of friends.
The narrative flashes back to Jude's early years of college when he often felt isolated and different because he lacked the cultural context and childhood stories of the other students. Jude did not feel comfortable confiding in anyone about his own past, although he felt closest to Willem. One night, when the group was gathered together, JB asked Jude directly what happened to his legs. Jude briefly said that he was hurt in a car injury when he was fifteen, and this answer seemed to satisfy his friends. Before Jude started college, he was encouraged by a social worker named Ana. He had met Ana when he woke up in the hospital after his car injury, and she had helped him with the intense initial pain. When Jude was released from the hospital, he entered foster care and remained very close with Ana. She helped him navigate providing evidence against Dr. Traylor and provided him with a tutor so that he could finish high school. She encouraged him to apply to college, and Jude ended up getting accepted with a full scholarship. As Jude prepared to leave for college, he realized that Ana was seriously ill. She encouraged him to talk about his past traumas, and she also told him that he would eventually have to confide in other people. Ana passed away in June, and Jude's foster family moved away in July, so he spent a few months in an emergency shelter before leaving for college in Boston. He arrived at college with everything he owned in a backpack and cultivated a deep sense of shame when he compared himself with the other students.
The narrative flashes back to an experience Jude has when he was in law school and clerked for Judge Sullivan. His professor, Harold, had recommended that Jude apply for the position. At that point, Jude had been working for Harold as a research assistant for two years, and the two of them had become close. Harold even taught Jude how to drive. The day after Jude got an offer for his clerkship, Harold took him to an expensive shop and bought him business clothes. Jude was nervous about the generosity and kindness Harold showed him, but Harold encouraged him to accept whatever kindness he was offered. Jude first met Harold in his first year of law school, when he took a class on contract law. During his time as a law student, Jude simultaneously pursued a Masters at MIT, worked for Harold, worked at the law library, and worked at a bakery. As he and Harold got to know each other better, Harold eventually invited him to dinner where Jude met Harold's wife, Julia. While Jude enjoyed his friendship with Harold, he also found it stressful because Harold wanted to know lots of information about Jude and refused to stop asking questions, even when Jude was evasive. Despite Jude's reservations, he gradually became closer to Harold and Julia, and by the summer after his second year of law school, Jude and his friends spent the weekend at Harold and Julia's house on Cape Cod. Even when Jude moved to Washington, and then New York, he remained close to them.
Jude recalls how crushed he was when he confided to Andy that he hoped his injuries would get better with time and Andy told him that there was no chance of that happening. If anything, Jude is only going to be in more and more pain as he gets older. Andy has promised that he will always treat Jude, and he is the only doctor Jude is willing to see. Andy and Jude have a friendship as well as a professional relationship and Andy even invites Jude to his wedding. Andy regularly lectures Jude about his self-harming and worries about Jude's mental health. Jude, however, refuses to see a psychologist. He regularly suffers from wounds that appear on his legs.
Jude reminisces about his past and early childhood. He was found abandoned at a monastery in South Dakota when he was an infant and was raised by the monks there. He never knew anything about his birth parents, and the monks often scolded and disciplined him harshly. Responding to the lack of affection, Jude became obsessed with stealing small items and was beaten and abused in punishment. As the abuse grew worse, Jude became subject to angry rages. The only monk who seemed to be kind to him was Brother Luke, who was responsible for managing the greenhouse and the garden. One day, Jude followed Brother Luke into the greenhouse. Looking back, he thinks of this as the moment where his life was set on the road to ruin.
Analysis
The plot of the novel is conveyed in a non-linear fashion, through flashbacks to different points in time. This broken and fragmented structure reflects both Jude's psyche and body: both have been shattered, and neither functions in the smooth, easy way that many individuals take for granted. As a reader, one is never sure where the narrative is going to go next: will it be details of Jude's present-day, increasingly successful life in New York, surrounded by close friends and hopeful prospects? Or, will it be the dark and horrifying details of his abused past? This effect mirrors what Jude experiences. No matter how good his present life is, at any moment he can be transported back into gruesome memories. The flashes into retrospective narration are essential to understanding Jude's relationship to his past trauma. His past is not over: rather, it is perpetually happening to him, alongside whatever he is experiencing in the present. This section also makes it clear that Jude has never been willing to access psychological treatment even though he could readily afford it and Andy urges him to do so. Jude is so ashamed of his past that he cannot bear to talk about it, and ironically, his refusal to share his past makes him even more isolated and ashamed. Ana and Andy (the similarity between their names hints at the parallel roles they play in Jude's life) both responded to Jude's disclosure with empathy and compassion. They did not judge him, and they tried to help him as much as possible. Still, Jude's capacity to trust is so low that he cannot believe that most people would care about him if they knew the truth.
The novel has also revealed a dynamic where Jude's friends (especially Willem) accept him for who he is and love him even though he is often evasive and withholding. This dynamic is demonstrated even more strongly through Jude's relationship with his professor, Harold. Harold's initial interest in Jude hints that Jude is intellectually talented, but the relationship quickly becomes more personal. Harold, like Andy, can recognize Jude's potential and wants to build a connection to him. However, for Harold, trust naturally comes with intimacy. He wants to know Jude's past and aspirations, and he truly cares about Jude without having any agenda of his own. While the love of his friends provides Jude with a certain kind of confidence, the other young men are insecure and still trying to find their own place in the world. They do not have the emotional maturity to nurture Jude because they are still learning about themselves. Harold becomes an important presence in Jude's life because he can truly function as a parental surrogate. He doesn't need anything from Jude: he simply wants to nurture him so that Jude can achieve his full potential in his career and his life.
This section begins to illuminate more about why Jude is so wary and reluctant to trust others. While Willem was orphaned, he at least has memories of his family. Jude is truly unmoored from any kind of family structure and functions almost as a kind of changeling. Jude's friends carelessly comment on his racial ambiguity without realizing that this lack of clear identity reflects the many unknowns in Jude's life. Traditionally, in literature, the orphaned or lost child is often a signifier of potential: they will turn out to be a misplaced prince or have roots in nobility. Alternately, the status as an orphan might allow them to break free of family obligations and rewrite their destiny by achieving social mobility. For Jude, there is nothing magical or promising about his lack of family background. It will always just be a mysterious lack that will make him feel different from those around him, unable to relate to them on a fundamental level.
While Jude's abandonment is the first tragedy in his life, it is far from the last. Again, contrary to literary conventions, Jude is not given a safe and sheltering place in which to grow up. He is made to feel unwanted and unloved from the very first day he can remember. While the abuse at the hands of the monks is relatively mild in comparison to what will come later, it primes Jude for a lifetime of victimhood. Because he is always made to feel like an unwanted burden, Jude never sees himself as worthy of love or respect. When Brother Luke first takes an interest in Jude, Jude is very susceptible to predatory grooming because he is so vulnerable. All he wants is to feel loved by someone, and he trusts Luke completely. The total trust and innocence Jude shows to Luke comes to represent the last time he exhibits these characteristics. In Jude's mind, when he looks back, all of the terrible things that happened to him resulted from the fact that he trusted Luke. With this perspective in mind, it makes sense that he is extremely unwilling to take the risk of trusting anyone else in the future.
At this point in the narrative, details of exactly what happened to Jude remain unclear, which stimulates suspense in the narrative. There is clearly an ominous element to the car accident, but the lack of details creates a sense of mystery and foreboding. Similarly, whatever happened with Brother Luke clearly had negative consequences for Jude, but readers do not yet know what happened. The explanation that the one person with whom Jude had previously felt safe (Ana) died also adds another layer to Jude's inability to trust. While Ana never betrayed Jude, her early death did encourage him to see the world as an unsafe place in which he is always in danger of losing anything he might gain. Ana's death also foreshadows how Jude will eventually lose Willem.
