On September 11, 2001, Jack Almanti loses his girlfriend, Sarah Bryant, in the North Tower, a loss that sends him into a spiral of grief, guilt, and addiction. Struggling to survive the aftermath, Jack finds himself drawn closer to Sarah’s twin sister, Emily, whose marriage begins to fracture under the weight of shared trauma.
When a near-fatal accident forces Jack back to his dysfunctional family home in upstate New York, he fights for stability through sobriety and grueling railroad work. But unresolved feelings, fresh heartbreaks, and a dangerous entanglement with a woman in Chicago threaten to pull him backward just as he considers starting over. This is a story of survival, identity, and redemption, following one man’s attempt to outrun the past and decide whether a new life is truly possible.
On September 11, 2001, Jack Almanti loses his girlfriend, Sarah Bryant, in the North Tower, a loss that sends him into a spiral of grief, guilt, and addiction. Struggling to survive the aftermath, Jack finds himself drawn closer to Sarah’s twin sister, Emily, whose marriage begins to fracture under the weight of shared trauma.
When a near-fatal accident forces Jack back to his dysfunctional family home in upstate New York, he fights for stability through sobriety and grueling railroad work. But unresolved feelings, fresh heartbreaks, and a dangerous entanglement with a woman in Chicago threaten to pull him backward just as he considers starting over. This is a story of survival, identity, and redemption, following one man’s attempt to outrun the past and decide whether a new life is truly possible.
It started out just like any other day.
A black Casio alarm clock blared in a small studio apartment in central New Jersey as sunlight streamed through the blinds. Jack Almanti groaned and reached for the snooze button.
“Alright, alright, I’m getting up,” he muttered, kicking off the faded comforter he’d had since college.
In a blue and white Giants T-shirt and plaid boxers, he sat up on the pullout sofa bed, rubbing his eyes. The digital clock glowed 6:18. Taking a long breath, he swung his legs over the side and shuffled toward the bathroom.
He showered while the radio crackled. “Imus in the Morning!” the jingle announced triumphantly, followed by Charles McCord with the WFAN 20/20 sports update: “It’s 6:20, and the Giants opened the season with a downer, losing to the Broncos 31–20. Kerry Collins went nineteen-for-thirty-four for 258 yards and three touchdowns...”
“Fuckin’ Giants,” Jack grumbled as he worked shampoo through his dark hair. “Good thing we didn’t waste our time going to the game.”
He shut off the tap, shook his head at the score, and reached for a towel. At the vanity, he shaved and brushed his teeth while a Westchester BMW ad droned from the radio: “Make this a September to remember...”
His eyes shifted to the peridot necklace resting on the sink. He picked it up, thumbed the stone, smiled faintly, and carried it out to the living room.
He slipped the necklace into a small keepsake box on his coffee table, then tucked the box inside his old green-and-gold Oswego State lacrosse duffel. He zipped it shut, got dressed, ate a bowl of cornflakes, and grabbed his Edutech lanyard from the doorknob. On the end table, a framed photo caught his eye: a silhouetted couple on a dance floor, hands joined. He brushed a finger along the frame’s edge, let a smile settle, and headed out.
Emily Bryant-Cashman sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-95, inching toward the Ben Franklin Bridge on-ramp. Dressed in a red and black Burlington County College T-shirt and sweats, she sang along softly to a Backstreet Boys song. With her hair pulled back and her glasses sliding, she checked the rearview, blue-green eyes sweeping the lanes behind. The low hum of idling engines filled the air.
Restless, she twisted her wedding and engagement rings and took a large gulp from her Wawa coffee.
“For the love of God, get moving,” Emily sighed as she glanced at the dashboard clock—6:25.
The traffic crawled onto the Ben Franklin Bridge and inched forward. The tires thrummed over the metal grates, the steering wheel buzzing in her hands. South Jersey’s industrial sprawl rose as she climbed the span.
A sharp rattle made Emily flinch—her phone vibrating in the cupholder. She snatched it up, flipped it open, and answered.
“Hey, Sar.” She gave the horn a quick reflexive tap. “What’s going on this morning?”
“Nothing much. Just waiting for the train into the city,” her sister, Sarah Bryant, replied.
Sarah stood on the crowded Princeton Junction platform, dark navy power suit crisp, Ray-Bans perched neatly on her head, blending in among the commuters streaming toward Manhattan.
“Going into the city today? What for?”
“Oh, just a sales meeting,” Sarah said, her gaze drifting to her red Volkswagen Jetta gleaming in the commuter lot. “At, um, Windows on the World.”
“Classy. Don’t you usually have those up in New Brunswick?”
“Yeah, usually. But anyway, what are you up to?” Sarah said, eyes on the tracks, two lone headlights from an NJ Transit train still a few miles out.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Chauffeuring Morgan around. Dropped him off at the airport. He’s off to Dallas for a client meeting with his dad. Gonna play golf with that old Dallas quarterback, Starbuck or something. Apparently, he’s a big deal. I dunno, anyway...” Emily said, flicking her gaze toward a tall, handsome man in a hard hat and reflective vest working along the PATCO right-of-way as the traffic crept forward.
“Roger Staubach? He’s definitely a big deal, Ems. He’s quite famous. Very successful and well-connected in those parts. Like I always tell Jack—the more you hustle, the more...”
“Yeah, okay right—I wish. Anyway, I’m headed to Mom and Dad’s to grab my mock lesson plans, then over to school to student teach. They’ve got an assembly today, so I don’t have to be in until ten. Ugh. This traffic... Wait.” Emily’s tone sharpened. “You’re not going into the city to see Tommy, right?”
“It’s only a sales meeting, Ems.”
“Wait—no. Seriously? I can’t believe you’d see that cokehead after everything he did to you. You said you were done with him.” She paused. “Does Jack know?”
Sarah was quiet. “He doesn’t—and you better not tell him. I know you two are like peas and carrots,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. “I love Jack. This isn’t about him. It’s business. It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s totally a big deal. How would you feel if Jack went into the city to see one of his exes? Remember the talks we had back then, how heartbroken you were.”
“I’m not getting into this with you right now,” Sarah said, sweeping a strand of hair away from her face. “You’d better not tell him. I mean it.”
Emily sighed. “I won’t. But why? Why do you need to do this?”
“Because I just have to, okay? He’s an arrogant prick. And he’s the only thing keeping me away from my bonus. And if that means sucking it up for an hour and dealing with his bullshit, so be it. Ems, I’m so close to hitting my numbers. If I close this deal, he’s locked in for five years, and by then I’ll be leading sales teams. I’ll never have to see him again.”
“Okay, but, um... there’s gotta be more to this, Sar. I know you.”
Sarah paused, sighed, and added, “I... I just want to beat him. Get back at him for everything. How he lied about being married. How he belittled me, over and over. How he never took me seriously as a saleswoman. He told me I wasn’t cut out for it. Not tough enough. Can you believe that? He’s an asshole, and now he’s desperate. I can prove him wrong, put him in his place.”
“Uh, okay... but why couldn’t you just have the meeting at your office? Why go through all this trouble? You think he’s wining and dining you in Manhattan just for a sales deal?”
“Yes, that’s how it works.”
Emily paused and added, “I think he’s meeting you because he wants to get back together with you.”
“Ugh, I have it under control.”
“You sure? Are you and Jack... having problems?”
Sarah hesitated. “No. Not really. Jack’s great. He’s sweet, loving, caring—not jealous like someone I know.”
“C’mon, not fair. Morg isn’t jealous... um, maybe a little, so...” she said nervously.
“Ems, Jack’s everything to me. I love him. I truly do. It’s just moving so fast. Four months in, and we’re practically living together, which has been great. But...”
“But what?”
“Uh, I don’t know, Ems. But sometimes... I wish Jack were a little more serious. A bit more focused on the important things. You know—career advancement, stuff like that. Uh, like Morgan.”
Emily shook her head.
“You know damn well that Morgan wouldn’t be where he is without his dad,” Emily said.
“So, what’s the issue? Really?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know if I’m ready for all this,” Sarah said. “I know Jack wants to propose. I can feel it. And I want to marry him. I truly do. I’m just afraid I’ll miss out on things that matter to me.”
“Miss out on what? The jerk?”
“No, Ems. This isn’t about Tommy. I told you,” Sarah groaned and added, “I don’t want to get back together with him. It’s about my career. I’m twenty-four. I don’t want to settle down yet. I’ve got goals. Six figures. A corner office. I can’t see myself getting pregnant before thirty. I know that’s what Jack wants. I just don’t think you’d understand. I mean, you were trying on Mom’s wedding dress in high school.”
“Jesus, there’s nothing wrong with being married, Sarah. Things don’t always have to be so rigid. You can still be with Jack, have babies and hit all your goals. Don’t throw away the best thing in your life just because you met him at the wrong time in your flowchart.”
Sarah laughed and nodded, the sound lost to an approaching NJ Transit train. “Hey, gotta go. Catch up later, okay?”
“Sure. Just don’t let him...”
“I love Jack, Ems. It’s business.” She glanced again at her car in the lot below, hesitated, then stepped onto the train.
“Alright. Have a good one. Love you.”
Emily hung up, twisted her rings again, and stared ahead as she merged onto the highway, the New Jersey landscape dull before her.
Sarah settled into the vinyl seat, took off her sunglasses, and stared at her shiny Volkswagen Jetta as the train crept forward. She took out a makeup compact and adjusted her lipstick, her intense blue-green eyes framed in the small mirror.
She closed the compact, unzipped her leather laptop bag, and pulled out a small, leather-bound journal. She flipped to the page dated April 15, 2000. In order: graduate with honors, check. Get a good job, check. Become a sales director. Get a corner office. Fall in love. Get married.
Sarah smiled, crossed out two entries, and rewrote them: fall in love, check. Get married. She hesitated, pulled out a photo strip of Jack and herself from the summer, nodded, and added, get married. She closed the journal, slipped it into the bag, and stared out at the expanse.
An hour later, Lower Manhattan thrummed with life as Sarah wove through the morning crowd. It was primary day, and there was an anticipatory buzz in the air. At Vesey and Church, she glanced up at a digital clock perched on the side of a building: 7:45 a.m. Her phone buzzed. Smiling, she flipped it open.
“Good morning, handsome. How’d you sleep?”
“Pretty good, I guess,” Jack said. “Still a bit sore though. Aikido kicked my ass last night, and the freakin’ Giants lost.”
“Aww, poor guy,” she teased, nearing Five World Trade Center, ascending the steps to the Austin J. Tobin Plaza. “Sorry about the Giants. You could always join the cool kids’ club, become an Eagles fan.”
“You know that’s never gonna happen.”
“Just trying to save you some pain. Especially after the Super Bowl last year.”
“Jesus.” He chuckled. “You crack me up. Anyway, how’d you sleep? Must’ve been tough without that tall, handsome man beside you.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Oh, listen to you, Mr. Lacrosse,” she said, adjusting her leather laptop bag as she entered the courtyard. “You’re so full of yourself.”
“Uh huh.” Jack grinned as he pulled into the Edutech lot, and then said, “You coming down with something?”
She twisted the cap off her water bottle and slowed. Her eyes lifted to the Twin Towers. She stopped. A crow’s shadow skimmed across the bright pavement.
“Eh, just allergies. Change-of-season stuff.” Her gaze lingered. “I always forget how massive these things are. I wish that guy would’ve agreed to meet in New Brunswick. Had to make such a production outta this.”
She exhaled. “Anyway, I can’t wait to get this call over with. Get back to Jersey. Back to that handsome man I know.”
Somewhere nearby, an FDNY ambulance wailed past. Sarah’s eyes stayed on the Twin Towers, sunlight flashing off the glass and steel in a thousand sharp points. She lingered.
Jack paused, hesitated, and said, “Why don’t you cancel your sales meeting? You could say you’re sick or something. I’ll call in sick too. You know, we could spend the day at the beach. Play hooky. And then...”
“So tempting, um, but I really need to close this deal. If I can get this guy to agree to northeast distribution, I’ll hit my numbers, and then...”
“Got it. Um, maybe next time. Go knock his socks off, okay?” Jack said, slightly dejected.
“There will be other days, Jack. Days when we can just be us. Where we can sleep in. And someday, hopefully soon, I’ll have a job where I don’t have to travel anymore. No more California trips, no more running into the city. Just us. And by the way, I missed sleeping next to you last night.”
“Me too,” he said, wistful. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me. We’ll make up for the lost snuggle time tonight. Deal?”
“Jack, you are adorable... just so.” She giggled. “Deal.”
She smiled as she crossed the plaza. An instrumental version of Billy Joel’s “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” drifted from the speakers.
“I’ll be home around 5:30. See you then?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it,” Jack said, cutting his engine. “Enjoy your breakfast. What time’s your meeting?”
“Eight fifteen,” she grumbled, stepping into the sunlit lobby as shadows from the arched windows stretched across the green carpet.
“Shouldn’t take too long. Can’t wait to see you tonight.”
“I can’t wait either. Hang in there.”
“Jack, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Jack slipped the phone into his pocket and stepped out of the car.
A bit later, Jack peered out the window at the retention pond, where geese pecked at the grass. Sunlight shimmered on the ripples. He leaned back in his chair, took a sip of water, and glanced around the empty office. Pulling out his phone, he dialed.
“What’s up, Double Trouble?” Jack said.
“What’s up, Captain Jack? Callin’ awfully early?” Emily answered, pulling into her parents’ driveway.
“Yeah, I got in here a bit earlier than usual. Couldn’t really sleep last night. Tossed and turned all night.”
“How come? Sar kept you up past your bedtime?”
“Oh no, not at all. Just, you know, thoughts. Actually, I didn’t stay over. Wanted her to get her beauty sleep for her big sales meeting. You know how cranky she gets when she doesn’t get her sleep.”
“Oh, believe me, we shared a room until we were ten.”
They both laughed, paused, and then Jack interjected, “Yeah, she’s been on my mind a lot. You know, Ems, been thinkin’ about how much I love your sister.”
“Aww,” she said, watching the American flag affixed to the brick façade flutter in the steady breeze.
Jack took another drink. “Hey, I’ve got an important question for you.”
“Sure, Jack, shoot.”
“I’ve been thinking about taking things to the next level with your sister. I think I’m gonna propose. When do you think would be a good time for me to come down and, you know, have that talk with your dad?”
Emily let out a low squeal. “Aww! Well, um, Jack, he’s home most Fridays. Maybe you could stop by during the day and have your talk. Are you sure you’re ready for this? It’s a big step.”
“Never been more ready, Ems. I love your sister with everything I’ve got. I know she feels the same, but yeah, I still got some things to sort out, you know...”
“Still worried about bringin’ her up to the rents?”
“Absolutely terrified. But you know, there comes a point when you just have to show your cards, even if your hand is pretty shitty.”
“Jack, your family ain’t that bad. At least from what you’ve told me.”
“Wanna bet? Maybe I should bring you up there first. Sorta like a test drive.”
Emily laughed and said, “You’re hilarious. But I’m sure if we did that, Sarah and Morgan would get a kick outta it. Well, um, maybe Sarah, not Morgan, but yeah...”
“Love conquers all, right?”
“Right...” Emily paused, lowering her head, shaking it.
“What’s wrong?” Jack said, catching the hesitation.
“Oh, nothing, just Mr. Goldman running in his garbage bag again. Silly man. You know he got divorced over the summer? Gotta new rug.” She laughed lightly.
“You’re a terrible liar, Emily,” Jack said with a halfhearted chuckle. “What gives?”
Emily smiled. “You’re something else, Captain Jack. I can’t hide anything from you. It’s not bad. Well, um, it’s just Sarah being Sarah. She analyzes everything, always five steps ahead with her career, her goals, even with you. She knows you’re gonna propose; she told me that. Just, um, maybe... wait a few months?”
“Okay, I’ll wait a bit longer. Your sister, I tell you. Can’t she ever just relax?”
“No,” Emily laughed. “Maybe you should... um... you know what I mean?”
Jack let out a belly laugh. “Yeah, that ain’t a problem. TMI!”
There was a pause, then Jack said, “Okay. Well, um, I was thinking maybe sometime around the holidays. That’s still a few months away.” He hesitated and added, “Is she still obsessed with Alicia Keys? That Fallin’ song?”
Emily smiled. “She’s got it on repeat.”
“Good,” he said. “Philly does that Jingle Ball thing, right? I can just imagine us, early December, skyline glittering in the background. Just the perfect place and moment to, you know... Um, if tickets pop, keep me posted. I want to surprise her. Make it a night she’ll never forget.”
“That’s so romantic,” Emily said.
“Thanks, I try,” Jack said, smiling.
He thought about something, shook his head, and said, “I never asked, where did Morgan propose? The shore at sunrise? Some special place?”
“Um... at our condo.”
“Oh?” Jack said.
“It was fine, really. He bought some flowers and sprinkled rose petals on the floor.”
Jack nodded as he mindlessly scrolled through engagement rings on a website. Emily stared at her rings and frowned.
On the 107th floor of the North Tower, Sarah sat across from Tommy in a sunlit booth at Windows on the World. The view stretched behind him, the city glittering under a perfect blue sky. The Empire State Building, Central Park, and beyond. Contracts, sales pamphlets, and a spread of coffee, bagels, and lox cluttered the table.
Tommy sat there smug and confident in his Ermenegildo Zegna suit. His hair greased, his smile too white. He leaned forward, emphasizing the numbers, market trends, and projections with his pinky. She nodded, keeping it professional, jotting notes in the margins of her pad.
Halfway through, Tommy excused himself. “Back in a sec,” he said, smirking.
Sarah sipped her coffee, straightened the stack of contracts, and then saw it: a small black book half-tucked into his open briefcase. She glanced towards the restrooms, leaned across the table, and opened the black book. Inside, pages frayed, dog-eared, stuffed with scribbled names and numbers. One page in particular stood out, titled “Lay Rankings.” Halfway down the list: “Sarah, the twin, nice ass, perky tits, inexperienced, mediocre at best.” Her cheeks flushed with anger and shame. She slammed the book shut.
She exhaled sharply and shook her head. She fidgeted, grasped the edges of the table, nails digging into the white tablecloth, and whispered, “This was a mistake.”
She peered at the elevators, debating whether to make a run for it. To abandon the sales meeting.
“He’s a creep. What did I ever see in him?” She grumbled low as she took a sip of her coffee.
A few more moments passed, and Tommy slipped back into the booth, pupils wide, demeanor agitated.
He leaned in. “You know, sport,” he said, his voice lower now, “we were a good team.”
Sarah blinked. “Um, what?”
“A team. You know, you and I.”
Her jaw tightened. “Oh, my God. Emily was right. Tommy, I’m seeing someone. I have a boyfriend and...”
“So?” He grinned.
“Uh, I can’t believe you,” she said, shaking her head as she put down the bagel. “Did you honestly think I was meeting you for—” She rose from the booth, fury rising. “Argh... I... I’ve gotta go.”
“Wait—wait,” Tommy said, grabbing her hand. Sarah froze. Her eyes fell to her leather-bound journal on the table, a photo strip of her and Jack sticking out, the two of them laughing, faces pressed close.
“I can’t do this, Tommy.” She yanked her hand free, frantically stuffing her journal and papers into her laptop case.
“Wait,” he called after her as she hurried toward the elevators.
By the elevator bank, the brass-rimmed wall clock read 8:45.
Sarah’s pulse pounded. She jabbed the “down” button once, twice, three times—glancing back, heart racing. The floor numbers didn’t budge. She muttered under her breath: “Why am I even here? I love—”
At 8:46, the building lurched, one violent, sickening jolt. A concussive boom rolled up through the core. Lights flickered. Ceiling tiles jumped. The sharp chemical stench of jet fuel blew through the corridor. Sarah dropped to her knees, ears ringing, throat burning as dust and fine grit drifted. Shouts rose from the dining room. Somewhere, glass shattered.
She covered her mouth and coughed hard, blinking through the haze. The impact knocked Tommy and three others off balance. Alarms chattered. The elevator indicators froze.
She grabbed her phone with shaking hands and pressed call.
The line connected.
Jack pulled the phone from his ear. Sarah’s name glowed on the green dot-matrix screen.
“Speak of the devil,” he said into the receiver, grinning. “She’s on the other line. Lemme grab her real quick.”
There was a pause on Emily’s end.
“Yeah... go ahead,” she whispered, staring at her wedding band.
He pressed the call-waiting button on his blue Nokia, swapping lines. “Hey, you changed your mind? Hooky?”
Instead of her laugh, a wash of static filled his ear, then shouting, a strange crackling.
His heart skipped. “Sarah?”
“Jack, I don’t know what happened, but there was an enormous explosion. There’s smoke everywhere.”
“Wait, what happened?” Jack said, befuddled as he grabbed the sides of his temples.
“I... I don’t know.”
Jack’s fingers flew to the keyboard. The engagement-ring site vanished from his screen, replaced by CNN.com. A red BREAKING NEWS banner flashed across the top, and a photo seared his eyes: a gaping, fire-engulfed gash in the North Tower, thick black smoke billowing into the sky.
“Sarah, listen to me.” His voice was firm. “Something hit your building. Looks like a plane. Stay calm. Find a stairwell. Get out. I’m coming for you.”
“What?! No! Jack, uh, please. People are scared,” she whispered. Then, after a pause that seemed to stretch forever, her voice broke. “I shouldn’t have. I, I, I love you.”
The line went dead.
Jack pressed the phone to his ear, willing it back to life. “Sarah? Sarah!”
A guttural, wounded sound forced its way up his throat as the half-full water bottle slipped from his hand and thudded onto the carpet.
And then the clock was brutal.
I started this book convinced it wasn’t for me. I challenged myself to read it anyway… and it ended up proving me wrong in the best possible way.
Seven Years in Chicago: A Journey of Growth, Part I – Survival is a gripping start to Jack Almanti’s long road toward redemption. John Altamura crafts a story that is both intimate and sweeping, tracing Almanti’s struggle through survive grief, addiction, fractured relationships and the long shadow of 9/11. This first installment sets the stage for a larger journey of identity, redemption and the painful work of starting over, shown in the quiet, granular consequences — the way catastrophe rearranges families, identities and moral landscapes.
What surprised me most is how Seven Years in Chicago quietly aligns (but niggled at my mini literary scholar) with two books that seem, on the surface, nothing like it: All the Light We Cannot See and Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Doerr’s novel explores how catastrophe reshapes a life — not just in the moment of impact, but in the long, echoing years that follow. Altamura taps into that same emotional frequency: the way trauma becomes a landscape, the way survival becomes a kind of moral and spiritual endurance. And like Kawaguchi’s tender, time‑bending café, Seven Years in Chicago is preoccupied with regret, memory, and the moments we wish we could revisit. Where Before the Coffee Gets Cold offers a gentle, magical way to look backward, Altamura offers the opposite — a raw, unvarnished portrait of what happens when the past refuses to release its grip. Together, these books form an unexpected emotional constellation about grief, time and the fragile hope of starting over.
Back to just Altamura's story. The book leaves you with a heavy, lingering ache — nostalgia mixed with bruised clarity. It’s the emotional equivalent of standing in the doorway between who you were and who you’re trying to become. Which is because of the exploration done here on survival in the aftermath of catastrophe. It’s about the long shadow of grief, the guilt that becomes a second skin, and the messy, nonlinear process of rebuilding a life that no longer resembles the one you lost.
In the first chapter, you're able to see how he uses his characterization to his advantage. Jack’s irritated “Fuckin’ Giants” in the shower is such a grounded, almost mischievous moment. It’s the perfect tonal misdirection — a normal morning on a day that will fracture his world. Showing us Jack's personality in reference to an instance of playful misbehavior, is a clever subversion of expectations for us as readers. I know I myself prepared for my eyes to roll. But Altamura understands trauma intimately. The book suggests that grief isn’t a moment but a terrain — something Jack must navigate again and again, each step shaped by the loss he carries. Love becomes tangled, morally fraught, and inevitably colored by the shadows of what he’s lost. His sense of self is rebuilt slowly, through sobriety, labor, and the kind of honesty that hurts before it heals. Time acts as both a wound and a teacher, while memory remains the weight he can’t set down, no matter how far he runs. Altamura never spells these truths out; instead, he lets them surface in the quiet spaces — the gestures Jack avoids, the silences he sits in, the words he can’t bring himself to say.
In Seven Years in Chicago, place isn’t just a backdrop — it’s an emotional language. Each setting reflects a different version of Jack, shaping him as deeply as any relationship or turning point in the story. New Jersey is the world before everything fractures: small apartments, familiar routines, sports radio humming in the background and the comforting illusion that life will continue as it always has. New Jersey holds the final traces of Jack’s unbroken self — the version of him that still believes in predictability, unaware that innocence is already slipping away. Coming home forces Jack into a reckoning. Here, he faces his family, his past, and the parts of himself he’s tried to outrun. The physical strain of railroad work mirrors the emotional labor of sobriety — repetitive, exhausting, and absolutely necessary. Upstate New York becomes the crucible where Jack learns what survival actually demands. Chicago is a city of sharp contrasts: seductive, risky, full of promise and pitfalls. It offers Jack escape and reinvention, but it also threatens to pull him back into old patterns. Chicago becomes a threshold — a place where he must decide whether he’s moving toward a future or simply running from himself. These places aren’t passive scenery; they’re mirrors, each revealing a different facet of Jack’s evolving identity: New Jersey shows who he was. Upstate New York shows who he is when stripped down to survival. Chicago shows who he might become — for better or worse. Together, these landscapes form the emotional architecture of the novel, charting Jack’s internal journey through the external worlds he inhabits.