The group heads to the basement to find out what's up with the "Titans" . Shmoop points out that it's pretty obvious that they've been spying on the family. The father turns on them and says, "You're human, aren't you?" . The group goes to investigate, but the father doesn't want anyone to see that he's spying on them. He tells them to go ahead and tell her the whole story, because she's "embarrassing" after all. She's so embarrassed that she can't even begin to tell her own story. She tells him that her first attempt at writing didn't make it past the judges, and that she was too old to win an award. She says that she bought the book because the judges were "serializing" the "gravity's rainbow" , which is a reference to the fact that gravity is a symbol of the universe. She also says that her family is out there, and she'll have to file for divorce if they don't come out and tell the truth about what happened to her and her husband. Shmooop says that this is because of all the things that the family will never be able to get away with.