Ghostwritten - Connections

Connections

The stories are connected by many references and touch each other in several points; however, in line with the book's theme of randomness and chance, many of the connections are implied rather than overtly stated.

• In the first part, Quasar phones a secret number to get more money from the treasury of the cult, he says the phrase: "the dog needs to be fed". The call is answered by Satoru in the second part.

• In the third part, Neal sits in a restaurant when a couple asks to sit at the same table; the couple are not named, but the age, general description and the fact the boy carries a saxophone case would suggest that they are Satoru and his girlfriend Tomoyo from the second part.

• The secret bank account number 1390931 that Neal is in charge of, belongs to the Russian mobster Gregorski, boss of the band of art thieves in part 6.

• The maid who cleans Neal's apartment and has a sexual relationship with him in the third part may be the granddaughter of the Tea Shack lady from the fourth part. Whilst the maid is never named, she claims her employer died and left her money in his will. "The intuition of an old woman dying" says the granddaughter is not telling the whole truth. This would be consistent with part 3, in which Neal withdraws three quarters of the money in his account and hides it in a shoebox beneath his wife's dressing table, intending to conceal it better later to prevent the maid stealing it (he dies before he can do so).

• In part four, Holy Mountain, the tea shack lady receives a letter from her daughter that says "...my daughter cleans foreigners' apartments", referring to Neal Bose's maid in part three, Hong Kong.

• The noncorpum who is the protagonist of the fifth part inhabits for a time the mind of the Tea Shack lady from the fourth part. She thinks that he is the spirit of the tree outside the shack.

• The Mongolian KGB agent Suhbataar from part 5 shows up in part six to facilitate the sale of the stolen painting.

• In Part 7, Marco wakes up in the bed of Katy Forbes, ex-wife of Neal from part three. Marco's publisher, Tim Cavendish, is the brother of Denholme Cavendish, the owner of the Hong Kong law firm that Neal works for. When Marco visits Alfred, the news of the death of artist/former secret agent Jerome (from part 6) arrives; Jerome was an old friend of Alfred. Tim Cavendish has stacks of unsold books by a certain "Serendipity", the cult-leader of Quasar in part one. Marco flirts with a woman in a bar called Nancy Yoakham who is reading a book by Dwight Silverwind, about 'transcending the limits of the corporeal body'. This Dwight figures in a radio-recording that Zookeeper plays to Bat Segundo in part 9.

• The lady who is saved from being run down by a taxi by Marco in part 7 is Mo Muntervary, protagonist of part 8.

• When Mo is on the run in Hong Kong, she finds refuge at the house of Huw Llewellyn, who, in part 3, is investigating the company for which Neal works. Mo also makes a major breakthrough in her work after talking to Sherry Connolly. Sherry is traveling in the same carriage as Caspar and the noncorpum in part 5.

• General Stolz, who in part 9 is in charge of the nuclear attack that may destroy the Earth, is the American chasing Mo in part 8. In part 9, one of the pieces of music broadcast by Bat is by the Japanese sax player Satoru Sonada, the protagonist of part 2. One of the callers to the radio shows is Quasar from part 1, who claims that the Zookeeper is the reincarnation of His Serendipity. When the Zookeeper denounces Quasar as a lunatic and a wanted terrorist, the line is interrupted by another non-corpum who says his name is Arupadhatu; this name is known from Quasar in part 1 to be His Serendipity's mortal name before he transmigrated for the first time. His Serendipity underestimates the Zookeeper, claiming he cannot trace him in under 30 minutes. After hearing out his proposal, the Zookeeper tells Arupadhatu he is 'Thinking'. In fact, he is tracing his call, and within minutes has located and destroyed His Serendipity.

• There are many other themes and words that occur through several of the stories: jazz, Buddhisms, marmots, gers, Genghis Khan, green pens, camphor trees, dinosaur references, people named Brain... and ghosts. In both part 3 and part 7, a mishap occurs with a coffee percolator as a result of placing two filters in it. The supernatural theme is seen in several parts with superstitious omens, most clearly in part 3 with Neal's apartment number and parts 3 and 6 with account 1390931 which is a palindrome beginning with 13 whose first four numbers, and consequently last four, add up to 13.

• There are also forward references to Mitchell's later books Cloud Atlas, number9dream and Black Swan Green: the publisher Tim Cavendish of part 7 is also a narrator and protagonist of one story from Cloud Atlas; one of the callers to the Bat Segundo radio show in part 9 is Luisa Rey, another narrator-protagonist from Cloud Atlas. A Mongolian named Suhbataar appears in part four ("Reclaimed Land") of number9dream. Neal Brose, from part 3, features as a schoolboy in Black Swan Green. In part 7, Katy Forbes is seen to have a birthmark shaped like a comet, making her an incarnation of the soul from Cloud Atlas.