Status Updates From Ducks, Newburyport

‘The fact that maybe Sylvia Plath wouldn’t have lulled herself if the weather was better’

Ben is collecting water samples from nearby creeks for a science project, leading to one of the most coherent sections of the novel thus far in which the narrator laments widespread pollution and American historical tragedies associated with bodies of water, including the Gnadenhutten Massacre and the Sand Creek Massacre, led by John Evans, namesake of her hometown of Evanston, Illinois.

Ben is 11 and jealous that someone his same age was responsible for naming the planet Pluto. I think we turned the corner just before page 300 and are now on a new (second) day of the narrative. It appears to be breakfast time or thereabouts.