55 pages • 1 hour read
Russell RobertsThe Invisible Heart: An Economic Romance
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Opening Day”
“Opening Day” introduces Sam Gordon, Laura Silver, and the fictional Edwards School. The first day of a new semester finds Sam hurriedly entering his classroom. He begins the class by introducing himself and the topic, joking that it’s “Life Skills 101” rather than “The World of Economics” (3). He begins the lesson asking when the world’s oil will be depleted. The students groan and attempt to calculate, except for Amy Hunt, who thinks instead. When Sam asks her what she’s doing, she says it must be a trick question. Sam praises her skepticism and tells the class that the world will never run out of oil. When the students balk, he offers a rhetorical situation: A room full of free pistachios. If a student were given a room full of free pistachios and could bring her friends but had to leave the shells in the room, eventually the cost of sorting through the shells would be too great to continue to find the few free nuts remaining.
The narration shifts to Laura, the new English literature teacher at the Edwards School. Laura is besieged with anxiety. She tells the class they will read Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations, and to begin their investigation of the novel she offers a quote from William Wordsworth: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers” (8). She arranges the class in a circle to encourage discussion and asks questions related to the quote, focusing on the terms “getting” and “spending.” She encourages the students to focus on Wordsworth’s word choice: “Getting” versus “earning.” The students believe that Wordsworth is talking about money, and that using the word “getting” implies that acquiring money is inherently problematic.
Meanwhile, Sam holds out a $1 bill to the class and challenges them to come take it. When a student is brave enough to try, he walks away with $1. Then Sam holds up a $5 bill, inspiring a flurry of activity. Finally, he tempts them with a $20 bill, then pulls it away saying that’s too much for a lesson.
In Laura’s room, a student expands the discussion by saying that “[m]aterialism corrupts us” (11), which Laura praises for its succinctness, but the student points out the superior lyricism of Wordsworth’s diction. She pushes the students to consider whether Wordsworth’s last phrase simply means corruption or something larger.
Both teachers finish their lessons: Sam by introducing Adam Smith’s perspective on self-interest, and Laura by encouraging the class to find the connection between the Wordsworth quote and Great Expectations in the assigned reading.
Laura hears about Sam’s money-handout lesson and goes to investigate his classroom. She finds the room drab with the black-and-white pictures of economists. As she leaves, she spots a colorful poster for It’s a Wonderful Life and wonders, “How could a man reward greed, yet honor a movie dedicated to the principle of people before profits” (13).
Chapter 2 Summary: “Beauty and the Beast”
The narrative shifts to the secondary plotline, revealed in Chapter 17 to be a television show that Laura shows Sam. A BMW speeds around curves on a Virginia highway. Charles Krauss, the CEO of the fictional HealthNet corporation, listens to Frank Sinatra on his way to work. He arrives at work and hurries to his office, greeting the security guard on the way. He takes a stack of papers and a cup of coffee from his receptionist and begins work eagerly on a spreadsheet.
Erica finishes her workout listening to the Indigo Girls. She showers and takes the train to her job running the Office of Corporate Responsibility. She answers the phone and then gets to work on her yellow legal pad. As she works, she remembers the music from her workout.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Danger and Delight”
Fast Eddie, an unhoused person who is a fixture in the Washington, DC, metro station, asks passersby for spare change. Sam approaches him, greets him, and gives him a few coins. On his way to the subway, he literally bumps into Laura. She recognizes him from school faculty meetings and introduces herself. When she discovers he’s the economics teacher, she teases him about giving away his money.
The teasing leads to a discussion on altruism. Laura argues that giving people like Fast Eddie money can lead them to buy drugs or alcohol which only supports the problems they have rather than solving them. Instead, she believes her brother Andrew’s approach (to give out cans of vegetable juice in lieu of money) is healthier for those asking for money. Sam points out that the person asking for money likely doesn’t want the juice. Though they’ll accept it, they’ll either drink it instead of eating lunch, using money that would have been used for food for alcohol or drugs, or try to sell it for money to buy drugs or alcohol. In the end, Sam says, the panhandler still gets the unhealthy choice they want but are inconvenienced in the process. Sam argues that Laura’s brother is only willing to help others in the ways he sees as valuable, which is a selfish brand of altruism.
Sam asserts that helping people should be done on the receiver’s terms, rather than the giver’s. He equates Laura’s argument to the one made by proponents of motorcycle helmet laws. Laura hopes Sam isn’t against helmet laws or seat belt laws, but Sam explains he’s against both of those laws. He argues that the purpose of life isn’t to maximize safety but to maximize the richness of human experience. Laura counters that many people may not realize the risk and reward trade-off they’re making. Although Sam concedes that could be true, he argues that risk, reward, and cost are largely individual and to force people to be safer or healthier than they choose is not something Laura, or anyone, would agree to if the positions were reversed. He offers an anecdote about his father who said that “danger and delight grow on the same stalk” (28), meaning that delight comes from navigating the challenges of life, including the dangers.
The argument concludes with Laura’s shock at Sam’s opposition to laws ensuring funding for emergency medical care to the poor. She says the view is “selfish…evil” (30), but Sam is unfazed. Laura is confused both at Sam’s seemingly contradictory views and her own positive response to their argument. Right before Sam’s stop, she asks about the poster in his classroom. He says it’s right where it belongs.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Tête À Tête”
In the secondary plotline, Charles has a contentious meeting with his head of Research and Development, Howard Cantrell. Cantrell is worried about the potential failure of the new prostate drug, Prostol, and wants to warn Charles. Charles tells Cantrell that it’s Cantrell’s job to solve the problem and ensure the drug is effective and succeeds. Cantrell agrees nervously and leaves Charles to work on his spreadsheets.
Erica runs the staff meeting for the Office of Corporate Responsibility, or OCR. Her staff reports on several complaints that have come from the newly established hotline. Many of the issues reported to the OCR will be funneled on to another government agency, only a few will remain in the gray area managed by the OCR.
Marshall Jackson updates her on the investigation into HealthNet, reporting a laundry list of reprehensible business practices. The staff discusses how to move forward, but Erica suggests they wait. Although she’s the director, the office is egalitarian, and all decisions are by agreement rather than fiat. The staff agrees and Jackson will continue to investigate.
When the staff leaves, Jackson asks Erica what she hopes to accomplish with more time. She tells him that if they can gather sufficient evidence against HealthNet, they can make a name for themselves within the machine of government. If they can establish their office as necessary, they’ll have more opportunities to accomplish their goals to regulate corporations. Erica warns Jackson that he’ll eventually have to fight hard against Charles.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
The opening chapters establish the structure of the novel: A vacillation between characters that invites the drawing of parallels. This conceit relies on the fact that the reader is initially unaware that the chapters focusing on Charles and Erica are from a television show that Sam and Laura watch together. As a result, those sections read as though they are real-world examples of Sam’s economic concepts and Laura’s objections about The Ethics of the Free Market Versus Government Intervention. In this first section, there are clear parallels drawn between Laura and Erica, on the one hand, and Charles and Sam on the other. These parallels later bolster Sam’s emotional reaction to the show, as well as enhance Laura and Sam’s character development. The setting is the first element of connection between the sets of characters: Laura’s classroom and Erica’s staff meeting are paralleled, as are Sam’s classroom and Charles’s office. In Laura’s classroom, she creates an egalitarian structure by having the students sit with her in a circle. The staff meeting likewise is circular, and Erica as a leader insists on agreement for all decisions rather than exercising her authority. Sam and Charles, on the other hand, stand at the front of the room in a position of authority. Although Sam is described as nervous and eager while Charles is overbearing and pushy, there is still a rhetorical parallel present in their relative spaces.
Roberts draws comparisons between Laura and Sam primarily based on their experience while holding similar jobs. He also sets them up to counter expectations: A man teaching a number-heavy subject would be assumed to have an easier time finding a job than a young woman in the humanities just entering the job market. However, the supply and demand that Sam will discuss respecting the labor market in Chapter 5 is already in play in Sam and Laura’s employment. While Sam “had a master’s degree in economics and four years of previous teaching experience” (5), it is “surprising that a school as staid as the Edwards School had hired him in the first place” (5). Laura, on the other hand, “had majored in English at Yale” (8) before travelling around Israel and Europe; though she “was lucky to be teaching at the Edwards School” and “it was unusual for the Edwards School to hire someone with no experience” (8), her recommendations and interview won her the position. What isn’t directly stated is that even in an elite private school, English is a required subject while economics is either advanced placement or elective, and so English teachers are going to be in higher demand than economics teachers. Describing each teacher’s qualifications and their relative luck in their positions creates both a connection between them (both are lucky to have the job) and a disparity in their experience.
The first chapter introduces the theme of Self-Interest Versus Altruism in Sam’s reference to Adam Smith. The first question Sam asks his students seems to be mathematical in nature. He writes two numbers on the board that represent the amount of crude oil underground versus the world’s annual consumption of oil. However, at the end of the class he tells the students those numbers were from 1970 and the current number of oil reserves has actually increased. He tells the students this increase is due to the self-interest of producers and consumers combined. Because both producers and consumers were bothered by the high cost of oil in the past, they innovated in the ways they used oil consuming items and managed the cost of oil production. Sam connects the concept of self-interest benefiting both consumers and producers to Adam Smith, which subtly references the invisible hand concept. The theme is developed further in the debate on the relative virtue of altruism triggered by the contrast between Sam’s giving money to Fast Eddie and Laura’s brother’s practice of handing out V8 to those who ask him for money.
The It’s a Wonderful Life motif is introduced in the first chapter. Laura is struck when she visits Sam’s classroom by the contrast of the colorful poster for It’s a Wonderful Life and the dull portraits of long-dead economists. The poster’s incongruity in the classroom reflects the incongruity she senses in Sam’s teaching methods and the romantic soulfulness expressed by appreciating “a movie dedicated to the principle of people over profits” (13). Laura’s interpretation and sense of incongruity introduces the theme of Art’s Ability to Forge Connections. Laura is softened to the teacher who hands out cash because he seems to understand the beauty of the film.
