acceptance lesson summary
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Acceptance, by Jeff Vandermeer, is the third book in the Southern Reach Trilogy. The story opens with Saul Evans, a lighthouse keeper, going about his daily rounds. After having a personal crisis about his true gender orientation, he left his job as a preacher in the North and traveled to the far South. Once there, he had taken a job as a lighthouse keeper. His lover, Charlie, works on a fishing boat in the nearby town.
Henry and Suzanne, two researchers, visit the lighthouse often. Their visits irritate Saul. He is certain that they were the ones who damaged the lens on the beacon a few days earlier. Gloria, a 10 year-old local girl, comes by to see him almost every day. She helps him do chores or plays by the water's edge.
The focus shifts to the present day and Ghost Bird. Ghost Bird and Control are main characters who jumped through a portal and landed in Area X at the end of the last book. Now they are walking toward the island. They head there because they believe that the biologist and her husband may have found a way to exist there. She can tell that Control is showing symptoms of an infection. He is feverish and paranoid. She feels protective of him. That amazes her.
In order to escape Southern Reach and her work, the director (Cynthia) routinely goes to Chippers Lounge and pretends to be a long haul trucker so people will treat her like one of the regulars. While she is sitting and drinking, she begins to think back to when she had first asked Whitby to help her pull off an unsanctioned crossing into Area X. He had readily agreed. However, once they returned, poor Whitby had never been the same. It was then that she realized that Area X infected people with a 'brightness'. Even now, she knows that she is fighting off the infection.