The Book of Goose

Agnès decides to run away from Woodsway, as she doesn’t care about finishing her third book Agnès in Paradise. She considers her options for running away and decides Meaker is the best person to go to for help.

Agnès asks Meaker if he’s ever been married. He says he’s not the marriage type but doesn’t expand on her other questions, as love isn’t a topic she should be discussing with him. She asks him to help her get to Paris. Agnès needs money and transportation to the train station, which she promises to pay back later. She is worried that Fabienne will die by suicide. Meaker insists he can’t help, that she needs to consult Mrs. Townsend. Agnès asks Meaker what he would have done to save his friend Wilfred.

The next time Agnès sees Meaker, she again asks for help. She says he’s the only friend she has at Woodsway, but he insists they’re not friends. The next day, she finds out that Meaker was fired. Agnès hears this from Catalina, who relays Mrs. Townsend’s message that Agnès is no longer allowed in the garden. Agnès tells Catalina that she and Meaker are friends and lies about having discussed marriage together.

Agnès learns she was betrayed by Meaker, who informed Mrs. Townsend of her plan to run away. However, her forcing their “friendship” led to him losing his job. Mrs. Townsend announces Meaker will soon be replaced. Agnès asks for Meaker’s new address so she can write to him, because he will be in her new book. Mrs. Townsend later chastises her for disrespecting her in front of the other students. Agnès accuses her of cruelty toward Meaker, but Mrs. Townsend insists Meaker allowed their friendship. Agnès insists she wants to go home, and the two have a heated argument. She threatens to tell journalists that Mrs. Townsend is forcing her to write a book with her own words.

Mrs. Townsend shows Agnès a letter she prepared for Chastain: In it, she tells Chastain that Agnès’s stay at Woodsway is not working out and that she should be sent back to France. She also reiterates the rumor that Devaux wrote Agnès’s first book. She warns Agnès that once she sends the letter, there will be no way for Agnès to change her mind about leaving Woodsway. Agnès insists on going home, and Mrs. Townsend notes it’s probably for the best because she doesn’t belong at Woodsway.

Chastain and Mrs. Townsend arrange for Agnès’s return to Saint Rémy. Agnès’s second book is published and performs modestly, but her fame quickly fades due to the appearance of younger girl writers.

Agnès’s parents are happy to have her back. She’s about to turn 15, so they want to take her out of school and have her work, either on their farm or in a shop. Agnès initially feels out of place in Saint Rémy but quickly readapts.

Agnès reunites with Fabienne, who shows her “Jacques’s” gravestone. She explains he died of heartbreak a week ago. Agnès asks what they’ll do now that they won’t write books anymore, now that Jacques is dead. Fabienne says their childhood is over. She screams about the inevitable pain that she and Agnès will endure, and sends Agnès away so she can be alone.

As an adult, Agnès recognizes Fabienne as too brilliant. Fabienne couldn’t commit to the life she wanted, so she gave into society.

Over the next few weeks, Agnès and Fabienne drift further apart. Agnès takes a job in a dressmaking shop in another town, moving away. She later hears that when a circus came through town, Fabienne disappeared, presumably running away with them. Agnès has a short-lived engagement with a cobbler, breaking up with him and moving to Paris. She meets an American man named Earl in Paris, marries him, and moves to America. In America, a literary historian studying child prodigies reaches out to her about her past. Agnès meets with him so she can see his copy of Mrs. Townsend’s memoir, which includes a chapter about her.

Years after Fabienne disappeared from Saint Rémy, she returns pregnant. She claims she married a famous clown. An adult Agnès wishes she reached out to Fabienne at the time, as she died by childbirth. She writes a book, the titular The Book of Goose, about their childhood and the world that didn’t allow Fabienne to reach her full potential.