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Abby Black lives in Brooklyn, in the narrowest townhouse in the city. Abby is one of the first Blacks that Oskar visits, but, as it turns out, she holds the key to the mystery of the key: her husband, William Black (much farther down the alphabet) knows about the key and has been searching for it. She left a phone message for Oskar after he came to visit her, but he doesn’t hear it until eight months later. The message cuts off in the middle because Oskar’s Mom picked up the phone, which is how Mom figured out about the expedition.
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Abby Black Character Timeline in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The timeline below shows where the character Abby Black appears in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5, “The Only Animal”
Oskar walks for two hours and twenty-three minutes to get to Abby Black’s house on Bedford Street. A sign above the door says that it’s the narrowest...
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A man calls from the other room, but Abby doesn’t pay attention. When Oskar finds a bit of dust in the kitchen, Abby gets...
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Oskar compliments Abby on a photograph of an elephant hanging on the wall, causing him to launch into...
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Abby begins to cry. Her husband continues to yell, and she continues to ignore him. Oskar...
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Oskar invites Abby to the fall play his class is putting on, Hamlet, which will be performed in...
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Chapter 7, Heavier Boots
Oskar narrates this chapter. Twelve weekends after visiting Abby Black, Oskar’s class has its first performance of Hamlet, in which he plays Yorick (the...
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Chapter 15, “A Simple Solution to an Impossible Problem”
...messages on the new phone. But now, he presses the Play button, and he hears Abby Black, saying that she might be able to help Oskar with the key. The message...
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...protest, even when Oskar says he’ll be out really late. Oskar takes the subway to Abby Black’s house. There’s a photograph of the house in the chapter; it’s the same photograph...
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Abby says that her husband knows about the key, but on the day when Oskar had...
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Oskar asks Abby why her message on the answering machine had cut off in the middle, and Abby...
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Oskar goes to Abby Black’s husband’s office. The husband, William Black, works on foreign markets, which is why he’s...
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