Chapter 28: Wednesday 18th September 2019 – Summary & Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

Andy, still reeling from the breakup with Jen, devises a plan to gain insight into his failed relationship. He books a real therapy session under the fake name “Clifford Beverley” (his maternal grandfather’s name + his childhood cat). His aim is to run a “Jen Inquiry”: to present a fictional version of himself and his girlfriend (whom he calls “Alice”) so the therapist can tell him what a woman like Jen would have heard about a man like him.

In the session, Andy describes “Alice” as a burlesque dancer and juggler with no savings, while he is a corporate lawyer who secretly hates his job. The therapist immediately picks up on his judgmental tone and questions whether his criticism of Alice’s career is really about her sexualised performance. Andy deflects, insisting the issue is merely about maturity and money. The therapist gently connects his need for “right” and “wrong” labels to his relationship with his own father, a lawyer. Andy grows frustrated as she refuses to give him a simple yes/no answer about whether to break up. The session ends after 55 minutes, and Andy leaves feeling cheated out of £100.

After therapy, Andy checks his online banking and sees he has not been paid for recent comedy gigs. He calls his agent, whose assistant says she is in a meeting. He then looks at the agency’s Twitter feed, which boasts about other clients’ successes. Andy composes a bitter tweet, posts it, receives only three likes, and deletes it.

Key Events

Andy adopts the fake name “Clifford Beverley” for a therapy session.
He tells the therapist about a fictional girlfriend named Alice (a burlesque dancer and juggler).
The therapist identifies Andy’s judgmental attitude and links it to his father’s influence.
Andy tries repeatedly to steer the conversation toward career differences.
The therapist refuses to give a simple directive; she calls out his need for external judgment.
The session ends after 55 minutes; Andy feels the session was a waste of money.
Andy notices unpaid gig fees and fails to get his agent on the phone.
He sees other comedians’ success announcements on his agency’s Twitter.
Andy posts a sarcastic tweet, then deletes it after getting only three likes.

Character Development

Andy’s self-deception deepens. He creates an elaborate fiction to avoid confronting his own role in the breakup. His “Jen Inquiry” is a desperate attempt to find an external source of clarity.
He becomes more aware of his judgmental tendencies—yet resists them. The therapist pinpoints how he projects his father’s criticism onto Alice. Andy acknowledges the judgment but quickly deflects.
His career anxiety grows. The banking and Twitter check reveal his stagnation as a comedian, contrasting with his earlier boast about being a high-earning lawyer in the fake story. He is stuck between two identities: the one he performs for the therapist and the one he actually lives.

Themes, Symbols & Motifs

Judgment and projection. The central theme: Andy criticises Alice for the same reasons his father criticised him. The therapist notes that his “judgement” of Alice’s career may mask insecurities about his own choices.
Therapy as a mirror. The therapist refuses to play the judge Andy wants; instead she holds up a mirror to his behaviour. Her office, the grey sofa, and the box of tissues symbolise a space for honest reflection that Andy rejects.
Performance and authenticity. Andy is literally performing a role (Clifford) while describing a fictional girlfriend. His real career as a comedian—making people laugh by being authentic—is failing, while his fake lawyer identity earns approval. The chapter questions which version of himself is real.
The desire for easy answers. Andy wants a binary “stay/leave” answer. The therapist insists that life is not about right/wrong, which frustrates him because it forces him to sit with complexity.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is a turning point in Andy’s emotional arc. Up to now, he has been solely an aggrieved party in the breakup. Here, the therapist (even in a fictional context) exposes his judgmental patterns and his tendency to blame others for his unhappiness. For the first time, the reader sees how Andy’s own behaviour mirrors the breakup’s root causes—his inability to accept Jen’s choices without imposing a hierarchy of worth. The chapter also highlights his professional paralysis: his comedy career is stalled, and he cannot even get an agent to return his calls. The fake therapy session fails to give him answers, but it provides the reader with crucial insight into his flawed character.

Study Questions & Answers

Why does Andy invent a fictional girlfriend for the therapy session? Andy wants to hear what a therapist would have said about him from Jen’s perspective. He believes that by presenting a version of himself (as a lawyer) and a version of Jen (as a directionless artist), the therapist will validate his side of the story and give him a clear reason for the breakup.
How does the therapist link Andy’s judgment of Alice to his relationship with his father? The therapist observes that Andy is asking her to “judge” him just as his father judged him. She suggests that his need for a right/wrong answer about Alice’s career is a learned pattern from his father, who likely pressured Andy into law. Andy’s anger at Alice’s “growing up” problem mirrors his own resentment toward his father’s expectations.
Why does Andy delete his tweet about his agent? The tweet—“I am thrilled to announce I cannot get my agent to call me back”—is a sarcastic jab at the agency’s boastful tone. After posting it, only three people like it, a humiliatingly low engagement that underscores his professional obscurity. Deleting it is an act of shame and an attempt to erase evidence of his failure.