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I know it’s a very literary decision and everything and probably part of the reason I love the book so much, but there is something to
recommend a story that ends. A nd if it can’t end, then it should at least continue into perpetuity like the adventures of Staff Sergeant Max Mayhem’s platoon.
I understood the story ended because A
really ends and whatever, but there were characters other than A
happened to them. I’d written, care of his publisher, a dozen letters to Peter Van Houten, each asking for some answers about what happens
after the end of the story: whether the Dutch Tulip Man is a con man, whether A
A
A IA was the only book Peter Van Houten had written, and all anyone seemed to know about him was that after the book came out he
moved from the United States to the Netherlands and became kind of reclusive. I imagined that he was working on a sequel set in the
Netherlands—maybe A
A n Imperial A ffliction came out, and Van Houten hadn’t published so much as a blog post. I couldn’t wait forever.
A s I reread that night, I kept getting distracted imagining A ugustus Waters reading the same words. I wondered if he’d like it, or if he’d dismiss it as pretentious. Then I remembered my promise to call him after reading The Price of Dawn, so I found his number on its title page and texted him.
Price of Dawn review: Too many bodies. Not enough adjectives. How’s A IA ?
He replied a minute later:
A s I recall, you promised to CA LL when you finished the book, not text.
So I called.
“Hazel Grace,” he said upon picking up.
“So have you read it?”
“Well, I haven’t finished it. It’s six hundred fifty-one pages long and I’ve had twenty-four hours.”
“How far are you?”
“Four fifty-three.”
“A nd?”
“I will withhold judgment until I finish. However, I will say that I’m feeling a bit embarrassed to have given you The Price of Dawn.”
“Don’t be. I’m already on Requiem for Mayhem.”
“A sparkling addition to the series. So, okay, is the tulip guy a crook? I’m getting a bad vibe from him.”
“No spoilers,” I said.
“If he is anything other than a total gentleman, I’m going to gouge his eyes out.”
“So you’re into it.”
“Withholding judgment! When can I see you?”
“Certainly not until you finish A n Imperial A ffliction.” I enjoyed being coy.
“Then I’d better hang up and start reading.”
“You’d better,” I said, and the line clicked dead without another word.
Flirting was new to me, but I liked it.
The next morning I had Twentieth-Century A merican Poetry at MCC. This old woman gave a lecture wherein she managed to talk for ninety
minutes about Sylvia Plath without ever once quoting a single word of Sylvia Plath.
When I got out of class, Mom was idling at the curb in front of the building.
“Did you just wait here the entire time?” I asked as she hurried around to help me haul my cart and tank into the car.
“No, I picked up the dry cleaning and went to the post office.”
“A nd then?”
“I have a book to read,” she said.
“A nd I’m the one who needs to get a life.” I smiled, and she tried to smile back, but there was something flimsy in it. A fter a second, I said, “Wa
“Sure. A nything you’ve been wanting to see?”
“Let’s just do the thing where we go and see whatever starts next.” She closed the door for me and walked around to the driver’s side. We
drove over to the Castleton theater and watched a 3-D movie about talking gerbils. It was kind of fu
When I got out of the movie, I had four text messages from A ugustus.
Tell me my copy is missing the last twenty pages or something.
Hazel Grace, tell me I have not reached the end of this book.
OH MY GOD DO THEY GET MA RRIED OR NOT OH MY GOD WHA T IS THIS
I guess A
So when I got home I went out into the backyard and sat down on this rusting latticed patio chair and called him. It was a cloudy day, typical Indiana: the kind of weather that boxes you in. Our little backyard was dominated by my childhood swing set, which was looking pretty
waterlogged and pathetic.
A ugustus picked up on the third ring. “Hazel Grace,” he said.
“So welcome to the sweet torture of reading A n Imperial—” I stopped when I heard violent sobbing on the other end of the line. “A re
you okay?” I asked.
“I’m grand,” A ugustus answered. “I am, however, with Isaac, who seems to be decompensating.” More wailing. Like the death cries of
some injured animal. Gus turned his attention to Isaac. “Dude. Dude. Does Support Group Hazel make this better or worse? Isaac. Focus. On.
Me.” A fter a minute, Gus said to me, “Can you meet us at my house in, say, twenty minutes?”
“Sure,” I said, and hung up.
If you could drive in a straight line, it would only take like five minutes to get from my house to A ugustus’s house, but you can’t drive in a straight line because Holliday Park is between us.
Even though it was a geographic inconvenience, I really liked Holliday Park. When I was a little kid, I would wade in the White River with
my dad and there was always this great moment when he would throw me up in the air, just toss me away from him, and I would reach out
my arms as I flew and he would reach out his arms, and then we would both see that our arms were not going to touch and no one was
going to catch me, and it would kind of scare the shit out of both of us in the best possible way, and then I would legs-flailingly hit the water and then come up for air uninjured and the current would bring me back to him as I said again, Daddy, again.
I pulled into the driveway right next to an old black Toyota sedan I figured was Isaac’s car. Carting the tank behind me, I walked up to
the door. I knocked. Gus’s dad answered.
“Just Hazel,” he said. “Nice to see you.”
“A ugustus said I could come over?”
“Yeah, he and Isaac are in the basement.” A t which point there was a wail from below. “That would be Isaac,” Gus’s dad said, and shook
his head slowly. “Cindy had to go for a drive. The sound . . .” he said, drifting off. “A nyway, I guess you’re wanted downstairs. Can I carry your, uh, tank?” he asked.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, though, Mr. Waters.”
“Mark,” he said.
I was kind of scared to go down there. Listening to people howl in misery is not among my favorite pastimes. But I went.
“Hazel Grace,” A ugustus said as he heard my footsteps. “Isaac, Hazel from Support Group is coming downstairs. Hazel, a gentle
reminder: Isaac is in the midst of a psychotic episode.”
A ugustus and Isaac were sitting on the floor in gaming chairs shaped like lazy Ls, staring up at a gargantuan television. The screen was
split between Isaac’s point of view on the left, and A ugustus’s on the right. They were soldiers fighting in a bombed-out modern city. I