Cat's Cradle recap

Writer John begins researching a book about the day the atomic bomb fell and traces the family of its late co-creator, Felix Hoenikker. He learns that Felix invented ice-nine, a crystal able to turn liquid water into more ice-nine, and that Felix's three children divided the substance after his death. All three converge on the impoverished island of San Lorenzo, where John encounters the outlawed but universally practiced religion of Bokonon and becomes involved with the beautiful Mona Monzano. The dictator Papa Monzano kills himself with ice-nine, and an accident sends his frozen body into the sea. The reaction spreads through the planet's water, devastating Earth. John survives with a small group, while Mona chooses death. In the frozen aftermath, he finishes his account and finds Bokonon still composing the last words of a religion that admits its consolations are invented.

John, who once intended to write a factual book about the day Hiroshima was bombed, contacts the children of physicist Felix Hoenikker. Felix helped create the atomic bomb but treated both the weapon and his family with the same detached curiosity. His youngest son, Newt, recalls that on the day the bomb was dropped Felix sat on the floor playing with string, making a cat's cradle, while his frightened child saw neither cat nor cradle in the pattern. Newt's letters introduce his siblings Angela and Frank and describe a home in which the children largely cared for one another. John also learns of Newt's brief engagement to a Ukrainian dancer named Zinka, an episode the family regards with suspicion. The inquiry begins to shift from a historical portrait of Felix toward the effects of his absence on the people closest to him.

John visits Ilium, New York, where Felix worked for the General Forge and Foundry Company. Dr. Asa Breed shows him the research laboratory and defends scientists' freedom to pursue knowledge without having to control every later application. Through conversations about Felix's work, John learns why military officers once asked for a way to eliminate mud. Felix's answer was ice-nine, a theoretical arrangement of water molecules that freezes at a much higher temperature than ordinary ice. Any seed crystal touching liquid water would make the surrounding water adopt the same form, with the potential for the process to continue indefinitely. Breed insists the substance was never produced, but Felix's habits and the evasions surrounding his final days leave John doubtful. Frank remains missing, while the possibility that Felix completed ice-nine gives the family history a danger far beyond John's original project.

A magazine assignment sends John toward San Lorenzo, a small and impoverished Caribbean nation that has unexpectedly become Frank Hoenikker's home. On the plane he meets H. Lowe and Hazel Crosby, who hope to relocate their bicycle business, and discovers that Angela and Newt Hoenikker are traveling to the same island. He reads about San Lorenzo's history, including the partnership of the American adventurer Earl McCabe and the native holy man Bokonon. The country officially outlaws Bokonon's religion and threatens its founder with death, yet its language and ideas permeate ordinary life. John also learns about President Papa Monzano, Frank's position in the government, and Mona, Papa's celebrated adopted daughter. What appears to be a diplomatic celebration is drawing Felix's three heirs, several Americans, and the island's rulers into the same place.

On San Lorenzo, John sees extreme poverty beneath the official ceremonies. Julian Castle tends the sick at his House of Hope and Mercy, while Julian's son Philip manages the Casa Mona and supplies a cynical account of the island's history. Bokononism, though punishable by the hook, is practiced even by people responsible for enforcing the ban. Its teachings describe human lives as parts of hidden groups and openly call religious explanations useful falsehoods. John is drawn to Mona and learns that she, too, follows Bokonon. Papa Monzano is dying, leaving Frank positioned as his successor. Frank does not want to rule and privately offers John the presidency, along with marriage to Mona. Seduced by both prospects, John agrees. The arrangement places him at the center of San Lorenzo just as the Hoenikker family's guarded inheritance is becoming impossible to ignore.

Frank, Angela, and Newt each possess a chip of ice-nine. After Felix died, the siblings divided his creation and later used it as a bargaining tool: Frank gained office and Mona on San Lorenzo, Angela obtained a wealthy husband, and Newt's Zinka was interested in the substance rather than in him. Papa Monzano uses ice-nine to end his painful illness, leaving his body rigid at room temperature. John, now expected to become president, has the body kept from contact with ordinary water while the Hoenikkers try to collect every fragment. John and Mona perform the intimate Bokononist ritual of touching feet, but his wish to possess her conflicts with her belief in love without exclusivity. Preparations continue for the public commemoration of San Lorenzo's war dead, with the island unaware that a substance capable of freezing its water lies inside the castle.

During the ceremony for San Lorenzo's Hundred Martyrs to Democracy, one of the military aircraft crashes into the seaside cliffs. The impact tears away part of Papa's castle and throws his ice-nine-frozen corpse into the ocean. The substance instantly propagates through the sea and then through the world's moisture, freezing the planet and producing violent storms. John and Mona survive in an underground shelter, but when they emerge into the dead landscape Mona chooses to touch ice-nine to her mouth and dies. John eventually finds a small group of other survivors: Newt and Frank, Hazel and H. Lowe Crosby, and Philip Castle. They preserve what unfrozen water they can and continue living among the ruins. John completes his record of the disaster and encounters Bokonon, who is still working on the conclusion to his sacred books. Bokonon imagines a last act of defiance toward the creator of such a world, and John contemplates enacting it on the summit of Mount McCabe.

The ceremony honoring the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy ends in catastrophe when an aircraft crashes into the cliffs beneath Papa Monzano's castle. The impact casts Papa's ice-nine-contaminated body into the sea. The new crystal form spreads through the oceans and atmosphere, freezing the world's water and killing almost everyone. John survives in a bunker with Mona, but she deliberately touches ice-nine to her lips after deciding that life in the ruined world is not worth continuing. John later joins Newt and Frank Hoenikker, Hazel and H. Lowe Crosby, and Philip Castle among the few survivors on San Lorenzo. They live with scarce unfrozen water while John completes his account. Bokonon, still alive, imagines finishing his scriptures by making a final contemptuous gesture toward the creator of such a world; John considers carrying out that image himself.