Angle of Repose Part 4, Chapter 1 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Part IV: Leadville

  • Rodman has just arrived at the Zodiac Cottage, and he loudly greets Ada as he enters the house. The two chat a bit about Lyman's health before Rodman goes up to his dad's office.
  • Rodman and Lyman talk about Granny Ward's story for a bit, and Lyman catches Rodman up on everything that's happened so far.
  • Lyman also explains that George Hearst had wanted Oliver to create falsified documents with "fake testimony" in order to speed up the permit process (4.1.47). Naturally, Oliver quit the job.
  • Luckily, Oliver got hired pretty quickly by a man named Horace Tabor to survey and oversee a mine in Leadville, Colorado.
  • But, Lyman isn't actually going to write about any of that. To him, it's straight-up boring—his book is about a marriage, after all, and the marriage is on hold at the moment.
  • Then, Rodman drops a bomb—he hung out with his mom recently. That would have been bad enough, but it turns out she's also got an apartment nearby. Oh, the horror. She also wants to see Lyman, but he scoffs at the idea. In his eyes, she's already "made her bed"—now it's time for her to lie in it (4.1.82).