Fates and Furies

Lotto dramatizes the experience of finding his classmate, Jelly Roll, dead, and his talk with the dean afterwards. However, the fictional dean’s moral takeaway is a lot more inspired and introspective of Lotto’s heartfelt womanizing rather than what transpired, and the scene ends with far less tears than it did in real life.

Lotto writes more gently-veiled characters of the significant people in his life, including his aunt, mother, and sister. Rachel comments that he is perhaps too truthful in showing his family’s personal flaws, but praises her brother for depicting their mother in a softer light.

Lotto’s writing rides the edge a bit too hard when he uses Mathilde’s personality for a character who ends up being a murderer in his play. It hits too close to home for Mathilde and they have an argument that leaves Mathilde hysterical. Lotto incenses her even more when, at a reunion, he presents an anecdote of Mathilde’s as his own. Mathilde’s jealousy over Lotto’s popularity bubbles over. With his play, Eschatology, Lotto finally receives his first positive review from critic Phoebe Delmar, who usually pans most writers.

Ariel creates a memorial gala for the Vassar group’s college friend, Natalie, which all the main players left attend. Chollie bribes a young waiter with $200 to “accidentally” spill wine on Mathilde, so she must leave the table. The waiter is intrigued not just because of the notoriety of Lotto’s career as a playwright, but for the mythic allusions another waiter makes about his former love life. The young waiter does as he is instructed and apologizes to Lotto’s pants despite not getting wine on anyone but Mathilde.

While Mathilde goes to the bathroom to clean herself up, her old boss, Ariel, hovers at the table in order to drop a bombshell that he was also Mathilde’s first boyfriend. Ariel states he was Mathilde’s first sexual partner for maximum shock value in exposing the truth of Mathilde’s past. This, above all else, sours Lotto’s long-held belief in Mathilde’s purity. One of the founding beliefs of his marriage to her was that she had saved herself for him and that he was saving her. He can’t look at his wife the same way again. Chollie’s plan goes off without a hitch. When Mathilde returns, she notices something is different in the air, despite Lotto flexing his acting chops and trying to pretend nothing is amiss.

Lotto returns to his mother’s house six months after her death, unable to comprehend what to do about Mathilde. Still reeling from the news that his wife had been her former boss’s mistress, Lotto’s perception of her role in their love story “had turned itself inside out” (195).

Lotto goes for a run to clear his mind and returns to investigate his abandoned childhood home. Haunted by the recent turn of events in his real life, he also feels haunted by his mother’s presence within the house. Turning to the boardwalk, all of the terrors he’d felt in his marriage come crashing back: Lotto worries about not really knowing his wife and being consumed by her loneliness. He swims out into the sea, delirious, under an ominous night sky. Lotto paddles too far out and dies, never making it back to shore. (This will turn out to be what Lotto was thinking about, when he died of aneurysm while sitting in his chair, in his studio.)