52 pages • 1 hour read
Chris CrutcherStaying Fat For Sarah Byrnes
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1993A 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 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
While talking with his mom, who he tries to get up to speed about Sarah’s condition, Eric begins to recall how he and Sarah made friends with the bully, Dale Thornton. Despite their smear piece written about him, Dale, Eric and Sarah eventually came to see that they had a common enemy, Mr. Mautz. The principal was eager to silence Sarah and Eric and to catch Dale smoking cigarettes or violating another school rules. Their common enemy made them allies in Sarah’s mind, so they needed to make peace.
Chapter 5 Summary
On his way to Contemporary American Thought class, Eric thinks back with amusement to the way Sarah got Dale onboard with their newspaper. He is thinking about this as he hurries into class and almost walks straight into Jody Mueller, the girlfriend of Mark Brittian. Eric has a secret crush on Jody but his tension with Mark makes it impossible for them to even talk. During class, he casts glances her way as his peers discuss organized religion and prayer in schools. Eric is taken aback when Ellerby declares to the class at the end of the period that he feels ashamed of himself, deeply ashamed of how little kindness he showed Sarah Byrnes over the years.
Chapter 6 Summary
When Eric arrives at the hospital, Virgil Byrnes, Sarah’s father, is visiting. He is a scary guy, just by sight alone, Eric decides. Seeing Virgil Byrnes jogs Eric’s memories and he recalls a conversation he and Sarah had with Dale Thornton one time during a newspaper drafting session. Sarah began taunting Dale over his poor vocabulary and Dale returned the insults, making fun of her scars but attributing them not to an accident but her father. Now Eric finds himself wondering if there’s any truth in that. He decides that the only way to find out is to go see Dale Thornton, who dropped out of school in the 8th grade. He heads over to Dale’s house after swim practice, accompanied by Steve Ellerby. There he learns the terrible truth—that Sarah was burned by her father. She’s told Dale Thornton this information herself and made him swear he wouldn’t tell anyone else.
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
Memories of their newspaper, Crispy Pork Rinds, take Eric back to happier times, when he and Sarah delighted in raising the ire of the school. Sarah was wily enough to win Dale Thornton over as an ally, getting them extra protection against others who might be angry over their writing.
Eric does a lot of thinking about Sarah, and her well-being, as he sits in his Contemporary American Thought class. The class gives students a space to decide what they believe in. Some, like Mark Brittian, use the space to reinforce their own beliefs, but others, like Eric and Ellerby, use it to question themselves and their assumptions. Eric is surprised but touched when Ellerby tells him that he feels ashamed that he never tried to befriend Sarah. Ideological camps make relationships hard, Eric learns, as he tries to connect with Jody Mueller, who he admires but who seems to be completely in sync with Mark Brittian’s worldview, which Eric finds aggrandizing and limited.
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By Chris Crutcher
