98 pages • 3 hours read
Eden RobinsonSon of a Trickster
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A 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.
Chapters 38-40Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 38 Summary: “We’ll Always Have Alderaan”
In the morning, Mrs. Jaks tells Jared that Sarah cut herself last night. He helps Sarah’s aunt clean up the blood in the kitchen before Sarah and her mother return from the hospital. Dylan drives Jared to school and tries to reassure him that Sarah’s self-harm was not his fault. When Jared tries to visit Sarah, her mom interrogates him about that night, but he blames her for Sarah’s mental health. She refuses to let him see Sarah and tells him he is no longer welcome at the Jakses’ house.
Jared goes to a party on the beach with Dylan but becomes bored quickly. Ebony sits next to him and eventually apologizes for the video she posted online. She gives Jared a ride home, and Sarah approaches them in the driveway. The girls argue and insult each other, while Maggie and Sarah’s mother have their own stand-off defending their children. Sarah tells Jared she loves him, but he is apprehensive to continue the relationship because of her instability. She shares that when she saw the fireflies, “It was [...] like coming home. Like being alive for the first time ever” (297). He compares that night to Darth Vader blowing up Alderaan, which angers her. At home, Maggie wants to teach Jared some protection spells, but he insists that he is “done” with magic. She reminds him: “You may be done with magic, but that doesn’t mean magic is done with you” (299).
The next morning, Sarah stands outside of his window, and they silently wave goodbye to each other before her mother brings her to rehab. Jared blacks out from drinking that night and only has fuzzy memories of sobbing into Mr. Jaks’ lap. He pleads with Mrs. Jaks not to go, and she assures him that she will miss him, too. She apologizes for being angry with him while dating Sarah because she realizes they were good for each other. She advises him: “Don’t drink your life away [...] You’re a good boy, Jared. I wish only good things for you. I wish this with all my heart” (301).
Chapter 39 Summary: “Summertime Sadness”
Maggie hosts another party, where a new ghost appears asking Jared to tell her daughter she was murdered. Maggie insists that he learn some protection spells, “but he had a lot of trouble caring. He barely had enough care left in him to get up to piss in the toilet instead of in a can by the bed, much less about protection from the dead” (304). At the docks, Dylan throws him into the water, and the experience reminds him of the cave: “He should be over it by now [...] but as he treaded water, he wanted to get drunk, immediately. He wanted to not feel terrified or dumped or used anymore. He wanted to get out of his head and never, ever crawl back in” (306).
Nearly home, Jwa’sins, the old woman from his dream and Pizzarama, drives up to him. She brings him to Dairy Queen for ice cream and explains that she is Wee’git’s sister, meaning Jared is her nephew. Jared is #361 out of Wee’git’s 532 children, whom he has had over the course of his long lifetime. Jwa’sins explains: “We’ve been alive since these mountains were lumps of gravel, bare and treeless. When you’ve lived that long, you tend to accumulate exes and children” (307). Jared is drunk and does not have anything to ask her. When he vomits his ice cream, Jwa’sins offers to bring him to “a place where you can find peace” (309). She brings him to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where he bumps into Dylan’s father. Mr. Wilkinson expresses how proud he is to see him there, consoling Jared when he starts to cry. He brings Jared home, where Maggie is having another party, and Mr. Wilkinson assures Jared that he can always rely on him for a ride to a meeting before giving him his first AA chip.
Chapter 40 Summary: “Sucks to Be You”
Jared writes to his Granny Anita, telling her about meeting Wee’git and Jwa’sins and expressing his wish to visit her. Maggie hates that Jared is sober and focusing on schoolwork because it makes him “a brainwashed robot.” He repeatedly tells her that his sobriety has nothing to do with her, but she takes it personally and gets physical with him. Richie calls her out of the bedroom before she goes any further, telling Jared: “it’s like you’re spitting on her traditions” (314), but Jared points out that partying is not “a sacred part of [their] culture” (314).
Jared gets a job at Dairy Queen, and his new sobriety and commitments to work and school ostracize him from all his classmates besides George. The novel closes with a response from Granny Nita: She encourages Jared to visit and advises him to be wary of Jwa’sins because “supernatural creatures don’t think like us” and she must “want something” from him (316). She expresses her love and apologies to Jared and his mother.
Chapters 38-40 Analysis
The final chapters of the novel see drastic fluctuations between despair and hope. Jared’s life, just like planet Alderaan in Star Wars, has exploded, and he sees no way to recover all that he has lost in the wreckage, including his Princess Leia. His damaged relationships seem irreparable, especially now that he has no stable adults left in his life. As much trauma and pain as addiction has caused Jared, the only way he wants to cope with his new, confounding reality is by getting drunk.
However, Sarah must enter rehab, and Jwa’sins convinces Jared to try Alcoholics Anonymous; these pushes initiate their much-needed healing and recovery. Jared’s reprioritized commitments of sobriety, school, and work alienate him from his old friends and even his mother, and as much as she criticizes him, this choice shows just how strong Jared has become. Even though the truth of Wee’git’s role in Jared’s life costs him many of his important relationships, it motivates him to reconnect with Granny Nita; her willingness to see him and her gentle advice indicate that even after 12 years, their relationship still has the potential to change and grow. Anita and Maggie still have much of their story to tell, and magic is “not done” with Jared—points that establish plotlines for the subsequent novel to explore.
