Cloud Atlas

Content Warning: This section discusses death by suicide.

In 1975, Rufus Sixsmith is 66 years old and lives in California. While standing on a balcony, he contemplates ending his life to “lay his dilemmas to rest” (89). Elsewhere, Luisa Rey wants to leave a party. A “minor league rock musician” (91) named Richard Ganja is acting inappropriately toward her, babbling about his spirituality and encouraging Luisa to take drugs with him, even though she’s trying to interview him in her capacity as a journalist. Unimpressed by his romantic advances, she walks toward the elevator, and Sixsmith holds the door for her. As they ride, the elevator stops because of a “power-outage.” They’re stuck in the elevator together, and Luisa is relieved that she’s not trapped inside with Richard Ganja. They talk. Sixsmith learns that Luisa’s father was a famous journalist named Lester Rey and that Luisa hopes to follow in his footsteps but has yet to make her name as a journalist. She writes for an entertainment magazine called Spyglass. Next, they talk about films, particularly the thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock. Sixsmith talks about his “treasured niece,” Megan. He speaks about his family and shows Luisa a photograph of him with Megan on The Starfish, his yacht.

The tone of the conversation changes. Sixsmith quizzes Luisa over how far she’d go to protect a source—whether she’d risk her life. Luisa assures him that—as the daughter of a famous journalist—she’d do whatever it took to protect her sources. Sixsmith is about to divulge something to Luisa when the elevator begins working again. As they go their separate ways, Sixsmith remarks that he feels as though they’ve known each other “for years, not ninety minutes” (97). Luisa returns home. Inside, her 10-year-old neighbor Javier has let himself in to escape his abusive family. After they talk, Luisa allows him to stay on her sofa for the night.

The next day, Luisa goes to the Spyglass offices. As people pitch stories about gossip items and serial killers, Luisa reveals the story that Sixsmith told her: The HYDRA nuclear reactor “isn’t as safe as the official line” (100). Quoting Sixsmith anonymously, she says that a conspiracy has formed to conceal the reactor’s danger from the public. Her editor, Dom Grelsch, is interested. Since this is a proper news story, however, he insists that Luisa find ironclad evidence. Luisa visits the nuclear station and meets the Public Relations representative, Fay Li.

Joe Napier, the head of security for Seaboard, the company that operates the power station, thinks about how his bosses have convinced the scientists at the plant to keep quiet about its potential dangers, and he ponders his ability to turn his conscience off when necessary. Sixsmith is one of the scientists. He’s the only person who hasn’t agreed to keep quiet. Napier thinks about his dead wife and his imminent retirement, assuring himself that he’s just “following orders.”

Alberto Grimaldi, Seaboard’s CEO, delivers a speech about the new reactor, and the crowd applauds. Afterward, he introduces a speech from Federal Power Commissioner Lloyd Hooks. They share a joke. Luisa is attending the press conference but leaves, pretending that she needs to use the restroom. She looks for Sixsmith’s office. It’s being cleared out, but she discovers a man named Isaac Sachs, who also seems interested in Sixsmith. Sachs mistakes Luisa for Megan, and she allows him to believe that she’s Sixsmith’s niece. He tells her that Sixsmith has traveled to Las Vegas, but Fay Li interrupts their conversation and insists that Sixsmith is in Canada on company business.

Sixsmith is staying in a cheap motel. He watches the Seaboard press conference on television and wonders what will happen when the plant explodes. All of California could be covered in radiation. When the telephone rings, he hopes Megan is calling. Instead, a man’s voice warns him that he’s being followed and should leave the country. At Spyglass, Luisa overhears a telephone call from Grelsch to his insurance company. He’s trying to secure funding for his wife’s cancer treatment. He ends the call and then gives Luisa the bad news: Spyglass won’t run her story about the nuclear reactor. Elsewhere, Sixsmith visits an airport to stash a binder full of documents in a locker. He takes the key and mails it to Luisa via her office address. He plans to fly to England, but the flights are delayed. Instead, he books a room at a nearby hotel.

In Luisa’s apartment, she talks to Javier. The telephone interrupts their conversation, but she allows the answering machine to record the caller. She listens to her mother list men who might be suitable romantic partners while inviting Luisa to “a fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society” (112). Luisa doesn’t have time for a love life. At the hotel, Sixsmith eats dinner and rereads old letters from Frobisher. At the same time, he’s concerned that his actions may place Luisa in danger. He believes that he’ll be safe once he reaches England, so he goes to bed. While he’s asleep, an assassin named Bill Smoke emerges from the hotel bathroom, shoots Sixsmith, and then proudly admires his handiwork.

Days later, Luisa reads a newspaper article about Sixsmith’s apparent death by suicide. She suspects that Seaboard had him killed. Despite her colleague’s objections, she decides to run down the story. Luisa goes to the hotel where Sixsmith stayed on his final night. The manager complains about the cost of cleaning up Sixsmith’s body. Luisa again pretends to be Megan, gaining access to the room. She’s given Frobisher’s letters. As she leaves, she passes the locker where Sixsmith hid the documents; she’s unaware of their existence.

Luisa presses Grelsch to run her story, claiming that Sixsmith couldn’t have taken his own life. She appeals to Grelsch’s ego, and he agrees to let her investigation continue. First, she attempts to find a copy of Frobisher’s composition Cloud Atlas Sextet. Only 500 were ever made, according to a record store worker who agrees to call her when he finds a copy. Sitting in a “dusty black Chevy” (121), Bill Smoke watches Luisa’s apartment, but she doesn’t notice him. She buries herself in Sixsmith’s letters. The building’s attendant tries to warn her about “an uninvited guest” (122) entering her apartment, but she doesn’t hear him. Hal Brodie, her ex-boyfriend, has come to split up their possessions. Afterward, Luisa inspects her comet-shaped birthmark in the bathroom mirror. She was surprised to read about a similar birthmark in Frobisher’s letters. She hopes that this is just a coincidence.

Luisa visits “the Swannekke Island protestors’ camp” (124) of people who oppose the nuclear power plant. Just as she’s about to be thrown out, Dr. Hester Van Zandt ushers her inside. Luisa shares her concerns about the HYDRA plant with him, mentioning Sixsmith’s possible report. Van Zandt warns that Seaboard isn’t averse to killing people who oppose them; they brutally attacked Margo Roker, who owns the property where the protestors are camped. Now, Margo’s “still in a coma” (127), and the Roker family may need to sell her property to Seaboard to cover her medical bills.

Sachs has a copy of Sixsmith’s report. He contemplates shredding it but decides not to because he doesn’t want the plant to explode or melt down. Sachs spots Luisa across the hotel bar. Thinking she’s Megan, he avoids her. Elsewhere, Lloyd Hooks is talking to Grimaldi, but he hardly listens, rehearsing a speech in his mind that concerns rich people’s right to be richer. To him, poor people are little more than “livestock.” Luisa charms her way into Fay Li’s confidence. Through her, she formally meets Sachs. She interviews him over dinner, though he flirts with her, making the interview feel like a romantic encounter. They laugh when Luisa admits that she nicknamed her car Garcia. Once the interview is over, Sachs tells her that Sixsmith wrote a report about the plant’s “critical design flaw” (134). Luisa promises to publish this report.

The next day, Sachs plans to meet Luisa. Instead of Sachs, however, Joe Napier appears. He tells her that Sachs has been called out to Three Mile Island and promises to give Luisa a tour of the plant. He shows her the reactor but is annoyed. He knew Luisa’s father and remembers her as a “precocious little six-year-old” (137). While he gives Luisa a tour, Fay Li breaks into her hotel room. Finding nothing, she leaves. Then, she offers to take Luisa to dinner. They eat together, and she assures Luisa that she’ll help with her report on Sixsmith. Luisa is suspicious. That night, the telephone wakes her. Sachs passes her a coded message: He left “a present” (Sixsmith’s report) in Garcia (her car). Luisa leaves the hotel. Napier tapped Luisa’s phone and overheard the conversation but doesn’t understand the coded message, so he runs to the hotel. As Luisa exits, a strange thought flickers through her mind. She imagines Frobisher running away from his hotel bill. The Sixsmith report is in her car, so she drives away from the hotel. Napier follows, as does Bill Smoke. In a fast car chase, Smoke rams Luisa’s car off the Swannekke Bridge with his “dusty black Chevy” (143).