91 pages • 3 hours read
Jeff ZentnerA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Carver is in his room, writing. He’s managed to write two pages of a new story, so his writer’s block seems to be slowly improving. This may be in part because of Dr. Mendez’s help and in part because of Jesmyn. He regularly watches her play piano now and finds this soothing.
Carver’s parents come into his room to tell him that the district attorney has decided to open an investigation into the accident. After they leave, Carver has a small panic attack: “I guess these miniature deaths are just part of my new landscape,” he thinks (168). He then asks Jesmyn if she’ll play piano for him through the phone. She does.
Chapter 22 consists solely of an internal monologue, with the plot of the actual narrative not moving ahead in any way. Carver describes the “what ifs” that he has started playing through in his head. He daydreams about how events could have unfolded differently on the night of the accident. In every scenario he dreams up, one key element is the same: “I don’t text Mars. I don’t text Mars. I don’t text Mars” (171).
Carver is with Jesmyn, watching her play piano. Tomorrow he will see Nana Betsy for Blake’s goodbye day. He tells Jesmyn about it and she reassures him. As usual, her piano playing soothes him.
As a joke, Jesmyn insists that Carver play a song for her. As he sits on the piano bench, he envisions Eli sitting next to him and has an imaginary conversation with him. His friend teases him because Carver has no musical talent. Eli then tells him, “Be funny. It’s your only shot” (175). Carver follows his advice and plays “Mary Had a Little Lamb” for Jesmyn. It works, and she laughs.
At one point, Jesmyn has some dirt on her leg. Carver reaches down to brush it off and, touching her skin, gets an erection: “I’m really trying to keep this pure and innocent, and I’m not being gross about a friend, but I’m touching her legs and they’re really pretty” (178). Driving home, Carver gets a call from Darren Coughlin. Darren asks if he has any comment about the district attorney’s plans to open an investigation. Carver follows Mr. Krantz’s instructions and simply says no.
Blake has his goodbye day with Nana Betsy. He joins her in activities she and Blake used to do together: going fishing, going to Waffle House, and sitting in Nana Betsy’s kitchen eating some of Blake’s favorite foods. Carver even helps Nana Betsy make a final YouTube video for Blake’s channel. They pay a fitting tribute by mimicking one of Blake’s favorite “pranks”—public farts. Throughout the day, they share stories about Blake. Carver learns things about Blake that he never knew and vice versa.
Carver realizes that Nana Betsy doesn’t know one very essential fact about Blake: He was gay. Blake told Carver about a year ago. Carver is uncertain whether he should share this news with Nana Betsy because she is very religious. He decides to tell her. She is shaken by the news and asks Carver if he will pretend to be Blake and tell her the news, so she can say aloud what she would have told him if he’d told her. Carver obliges. This is Nana Betsy’s response: “I love you more than I love God himself. So if he's got a problem with anything, he can talk to me” (204).
Nana Betsy tells Carver more about Blake’s family situation. Blake never knew his dad. His mom, Mitzi, had problems with substance abuse. She wasn’t able to take care of Blake. When Blake was eight years old, Nana Betsy took him into her care. Carver theorizes internally that she must have some level of guilt as well; if she had never taken Blake from Mitzi, he wouldn’t have met Sauce Crew and wouldn’t have been in the car with Mars and Eli when it crashed.
Nana Betsy calls Mitzi to tell her about Blake’s death. She asks Carver if he’ll stand by her side while she calls. Nana Betsy is unable to get out the words, however, and Carver steps in to break the news. Mitzi is distraught and demands to speak to Nana Betsy, saying “Put her back on. It’s her fault for taking him” (222). Carver refuses to put Nana Betsy back on the phone, wanting to spare her this accusation.
Finally, Nana Betsy reveals that she is leaving Nashville and moving back to her home in the mountains of Tennessee. She was only in Nashville so that Blake could attend the arts academy there. Carver is surprised, having never considered what sorts of tangible, practical consequences Blake’s death might have on people’s lives, beyond the emotional ones.
Carver meets with Dr. Mendez, who asks Carver to tell him a story of Sauce Crew’s deaths in which he removes himself from the question of causation. Carver obliges but finds the task difficult. Dr. Mendez explains why Carver may be inclined to take the blame for the accident:
Our minds seek causality because it suggests an order to the universe that may not actually exist […]. Many people would prefer to accept an undue share of blame for a tragic event than concede that there’s no order to things. Chaos is frightening. A capricious existence where bad things happen to good people for no discernible reason is frightening (232).
Chapter 21 contains a pivotal plot development. Until now, Carver has only faced the possibility of a criminal investigation. Now, the investigation is happening. The likelihood that Carver will face criminal charges is now greater, and the tension is ramped up further. Still, the book’s primary plot focus is Carver’s emotional journey, not the criminal investigation. The narrative reminds the reader of his important subplot, however—for example with Darren’s phone call in Chapter 23. This moment could have been left out of the story without impeding the narrative. It serves a purpose, however, jerking both Carver and the reader out of the previous calm, optimistic scene with Jesmyn. It is a reminder that Carver’s life can’t really move on as long as the investigation is looming.
Another pivotal plot development occurs in Jesmyn’s and Carver’s relationship—although only Carver is aware of it. Thus far, Carver has only hinted at an attraction to Jesmyn. When he brushes some dirt off her leg and touches her skin, the attraction becomes undeniable: He gets an erection. Carver quickly tries to quash the feelings: “I’m really trying to keep this pure and innocent, and I’m not being gross about a friend, but I’m touching her legs and they’re really pretty” (178).
Yet another important plot development takes place in Chapter 24, with Blake’s goodbye day—the first in the book. The theme of the ripple effect is highlighted when Carver learns that Nana Betsy took Blake away from his neglectful mother, Mitzi, and wonders to himself whether she feels guilty at all for Blake’s death. Mitzi also makes the connection, immediately blaming Nana Betsy for the event. Many of the book’s characters fall into this trap of seeking causality for the accident (Carver, Adair, Mitzi). Dr. Mendez explains the tendency, telling Carver that “a capricious existence where bad things happen to good people for no discernible reason is frightening” (232). The book’s overarching narrative supports this ethos, arguing that although it’s tempting to recognize a ripple effect in all of life’s events, this is ultimately harmful behavior.
Thanks to her religion, Nana Betsy is one character who seems to be immune to the desire to find causality. She doesn’t look for a “why” because she can attribute everything to a greater power, God. It’s her religion that also makes Carver afraid to tell her that Blake was gay, however. Carver’s revelation to her, and Nana Betsy’s total lack of awareness, is the first in a series of events to follow—in every goodbye day, Carver will reveal aspects of the dead boys to their families that their families had no clue about. This pattern speaks to the complex nature of family and to the different types of “family” a person can have. The members of Sauce Crew confided certain parts of themselves to Carver, who was not just a friend but a brother figure.
Carver again calls upon his imaginary friends in a moment of emotional distress in Chapter 23, when Jesmyn asks him to play piano for her. Carver isn’t a musician and is nervous about embarrassing himself. Then he imagines Eli is there. In their imagined exchange, Eli proposes that Carver turn to humor to avoid making a fool himself—which he does, successfully.
By Jeff Zentner