Welcome to the second discussion of Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear covering chapters 28-43.

Here is a brief summary of the sections separated by time rather than by chapter.

Present: 

Abigail and mother visit the farm. Abigail is going to divorce her husband. Natalie is triggered and gives Abigail a lecture. Caleb is venturing into the man-o-sphere. 

As Abigail and mother leave, Natalie starts to realize she is her own little trap on the farm. So she makes a decision to become an influencer. 

Natalie pays $1,500 for a influencer training and learns to be an influencer. She tries it out.

Then one day Caleb shows her that he had mentioned her to a bearded podcast host who then named Natalie’s account on his show. Within 24 hours, Natalie has 300,000 follower. 

Natalie learns how to attract followers and the trick to get people “addicted.”

Also Doug wants Natalie to promote him for his presidential campaign. She says no.

Natalie goes to the store and runs into a follower. Things don’t turn out well. The follower notices that Natalie left her baby in the car while she was shopping. Oh damn.

Caleb finds out that Natalie is hiding money away. Natalie hires two nannies: Nanny Aimee and Nanny Louise. She also hires Shannon. Shannon visits but Natalie notices there is a problem; the version Natalie shares online is not the real Natalie. 

But Natalie shares these truths with Shannon. Shannon seems to blend in and enjoy the work. She stays. Natalie has a fifth child and wants Shannon to film it. 

Past: 

Natalie has sex with Old Caleb without real consent but also reaches new heights of sexual pleasure she never thought possible. She wonders how this person is the ideal man of her childhood dreams but doesn’t want him. 

Natalie starts to adapt herself and sees this tribulation as a divine test. Mary is hiding something. 

Mary starts to mope around and loses motivation to do chores. Everyone is a little worried and confused. Natalie talks to her and Mary asks, “Why do people lie?” Natalie sees it as a divine test and confesses her present life about Caleb and Clementine to Mary, who is confused. Who is Clementine. “Nobody,” Natalie snaps, ending the confession.  

Abel turns 13 and Old Caleb takes him into the woods for possibly a “manly” ritual. 

Natalie starts to feel the presence of God in her life now in the past. She revels in it. But then…. She realizes she is pregnant despite specifically telling God that is not what she wanted. Crisis of faith?

Old Caleb brings over some new men. Natalie feels the push and pull of them.

Hello and welcome to our first discussion about Flesh by David Szalay. The book is reading really fast! One sentence paragraphs plus the content is hooks you. Here is my summary:

Chapter 1

István is 15 years old. He lives with his mother; he is a virgin. He almost makes it with this girl from across the tracks on his friend’s reference. He is inexperienced and awkward, and the girl is also unable to overcome the distance. 

His mother asks him to help out the married female neighbor with shopping. He sometimes helps the husband with work. Anyways, the woman and István develop a sexual relationship, and he loses his virginity to her. It starts off slow with kissing, then oral sex, leading ultimately to sex in his bedroom. They take a trip to a nearby lake in a nearby town where they make sex again. 

He starts to develop feelings. The woman realizes that it’s gone too far and tries to end it. But Ivstán is too overcome with the way the relationship fulfills his emptiness. He tries to stall himself, but can’t. He goes to her apartment at night when her husband is home from work. There is a scuffle and the husband falls down the stairs hitting his head.

István walks away. The police catch up to him and reveal that the husband died. 

Chapter 2

István is older and has spent his time in an institution. He now lives in a town where he still lives with his mom but struggles for money. His uncle and stepdaughter live in this town too, and he starts to develop a crush that turns into love again. His second love. He falls for her and invites her to a lake that turns into an overnight. She has always expressed some hesitancy as if she knows his feelings, may feel some of them too, but ultimately thinks it’s a bad idea. But she goes along and agrees to the overnight. Agrees too to kiss him when he asks, but then refuses to go further; tells István that she is dating someone else. István is devastated. 

He joins the army. 

Chapter 3 

We start this chapter with István getting out of the army after five years, where he was stationed in Iraq. There is some trauma he experienced while in Iraq with him trying to save a friend after they hit a landmine on the road. But we learn that later.

When István returns home, we read about new lascivious adventures with drugs and sex. István gets a job at a winery where he is good enough at it but finds that he desires work where he can stop his mind. 

István one day punches his door and severely breaks his right hand. He goes to a doctor and gets an X-ray. He refuses surgery and so the doctor, who is an old classmate, sets it himself. István is struck by the fact that his classmate became a doctor while he is still languishing in life. 

His mom realizes that he needs help and gets him an appointment with a therapist. They explore the trauma of war he experienced. The chapter ends with the therapist prescribing medications that do indeed seem to help István.