Plot Summary
The omniscient narrator moves through the seemingly idyllic Midwestern town relating the, surprisingly violent, histories of the various sociological groups that populate the metropolis. He speaks as both a representative of the city, definitively summing up the collective views on life of all, and as a biased observer, subtly commenting on those views. In an indictment on small town life, he points out the city's arrogant insularity and refusal to acknowledge the darker elements of the past. While so doing, he also describes the details of and the resulting city wide interest arising from the "viaduct killer's" murders.
In examining the subsections of the city folk, the identity of the killer is hinted at repeatedly. The affluent are a secretive caste laden down with rituals and untold power, subtly afflicted by inbreeding both literal and figurative. The Eastern Europeans have tightly focused households all routinely verging on the precipice of domestic violence or self mutilation. Feral children, organized into warring tribes after abandonment by social services, live in ramshackle tree house like structures constructed from garbage and prey on tourists. And finally those who dwell in the ghetto, the city has purposefully remained ignorant of them. Each group and several smaller groups all have evidence brought forth that could solidify each one as the breeding ground for the much sought after sociopath but the culprit's cultural identity remains unresolved. The final lingering image is of the half completed bridge, "the Broken Span," the iconic symbol of the city.
Read more about this topic: A Short Guide To The City
Famous quotes containing the words plot and/or summary:
“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitors thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?1400)
“I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (17881824)