Four

Summary

• This chapter largely focuses on the insecure and ambitious narrator - a budding author, who becomes involved in a difficult process of editing a piece of writing left behind by her deceased acquaintance named Athena Liu. While reconstructing the manuscript (named "The Last Front") and during the increasingly engaging collaboration with her editor, Daniella Woodhouse, she comes to question her own identity and individuality as a writer.
• Heavily editing Athena’s book, she transforms complex and nuanced narrative into a highly accessible, commercially-viable text. Early feedback is positive, and she starts to regain some of her self-confidence.
• However, she is keenly aware that she is living in Athena’s shadow and any success she has will be attributed to Athena’s brilliance. She decides to exploit her connection with Athena and to present herself as a friend and disciple of the late author. She also sets up a scholarship in Athena's name at the Asian American Writers' Collective, the literary community Athena was very active in.
• Despite her efforts, the narrator soon learns that Athena's mother has donated several of Athena's notebooks to a public archive at Yale University, which may reveal the truth about their "collaboration". She visits Athena's mother to try and retrieve the notebooks, under the pretense that revealing them to the public would be a violation of Athena's private world. The chapter ends with a clear hint that the narrator might have convinced Mrs. Liu to give her the potentially damaging notebooks.

• The chapter revolves around a conversation between June and Mrs. Liu, the mother of Athena, their mutual friend who passed away.
• June advises Mrs. Liu to not relinquish Athena's extensive notes for her novel, The Last Front, to the Marlin archive, which would make them public. Instead, she suggests Mrs. Liu keep them within the family.
• Mrs. Liu, feeling hesitant about having Athena's notes around, offers them to June. However, June declines the offer, stating any more of Athena's work could potentially leave a trail leading back to her and she doesn't want to build her career on repurposing Athena's work.
• Upon revealing that there's no one else in the family to inherit the notebooks, Mrs. Liu gets distressed at the thought of the public archive finding potentially damaging information.
• Seeing Mrs. Liu’s distress, June tries to retract her words but Mrs. Liu reinforces her decision to not expose Athena's works to the public.
• June spends some more time with Mrs. Liu before leaving, reassuring Mrs. Liu of the influence Athena had on her work.
• June keeps an eye on the Marlin archive website for the next few weeks and finds no updates about the Athena Liu collection. She observes that the announcement about the collection being available to the public is removed without acknowledgment.