44 pages 1 hour read

Tea Obreht

The Tiger's Wife

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011

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Chapters 10-Epilogue

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary: The Crossroads

Natalia admits that she wants to see the mora, who Fra Antun tells her has recently been removing the gifts left at the crossroads. Whether it is a teenaged prankster or the deathless man is unclear. Fra Antun escorts her to the crossroads, and along the way tells her about the murder of his brother Arlo at age fifteen. Arlo goes camping, a few months before the war starts, with some friends and is not seen again until his father, Barba, finds him in the dumpster a week later. Natalia waits at the crossroads, only realizing how foolish and dangerous her vigil is after she has embarked upon it.

She is rewarded when a figure digs up the jar she has buried. She follows the figure up the hill into a deserted village, the houses now empty and crumbling. 

Chapter 11 Summary: The Bombing | Gavran Gailé

In this chapter, Natalia narrates the bombing in the city, during a different phase of the same war that ended in a cease-fire when she was seventeen. She is now22 and an intern. The city shuts down at first, but then the citizens begin to fight and resist their fear, guarding the zoo and other landmarks during the bombing raids, forming human shields and standing witness to the destruction.