47 pages • 1 hour read
Jim StovallThe Ultimate Gift
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1991A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “In the Beginning”
Content Warning: This book sometimes engages in ableist and stereotypical views of disability, particularly blindness. It sometimes trivializes these disabilities. The book contains depictions of foster homes and may engage in stereotypical ideas of adoptive families. It contains references to death by suicide.
Narrator Theodore Hamilton, 80, sits behind his huge desk in the office of Hamilton, Hamilton, & Hamilton, one of Boston’s most prestigious firms, which he founded 53 years earlier and manages with his son and grandson. His long-time assistant, Margaret Hastings, enters and quietly announces a major client and friend of Hamilton, Red Stevens, died. She’ll manage the many details involved in handling Red’s estate, from contacting relatives to parrying the media storm that’s about to break. She offers her condolences and departs.
Two weeks later, in the firm’s conference room, Hamilton presides over the reading of the will. Red leaves to eldest son Jack his first company, Panhandle Oil and Gas, worth $600 million. Red’s words remind Jack he showed no interest in the company and therefore must make no attempt to control or alter it, lest that trigger a clause that transfers ownership to a charity. Hamilton knows Red did his philandering son a big favor. The will further stipulates that, after each recipient receives notice of inheritance, they are to depart the room.
Stevens leaves daughter Ruth the family ranch in Texas, including its cattle operations. Ruth claps with glee. As with Jack, Ruth and her husband must keep their hands off of ranch operations. They’re escorted out. Youngest son Bill receives Stevens’s entire investment portfolio; it will be managed by Hamilton’s firm.
Other relatives receive their bounty. Finally, only one inheritor remains, 24-year-old great-nephew Jason Stevens. Jason angrily declares Red Stevens left him nothing because he always hated him and gets up to leave. Hamilton stops him and says the will does mention him, giving Jason “nothing and everything—both at the same time” (12).
Chapter 2 Summary: “A Voice From the Past”
Miss Hastings places a cardboard box before Hamilton. He breaks its seal, pulls out a videotape, and hands it to Hastings, who places the tape in a player. Jason complains everyone else got millions while he gets a home movie. Hastings plays the video. It shows Red Stevens, a big, dominating man who built from scratch one of the world’s largest oil companies. Red addresses Jason, saying Hamilton and Hastings are “two of the finest people” he’s ever known (15).
Red anticipates Jason’s rude behavior and apologizes for it. He says that, for decades, he tried to give his relatives what they wanted, sometimes to compensate them for his absences, but it only prevented them from being happy. He finally realized, he says, that “everything we ever do or know or have in this life is a gift from the good Lord” and that happiness is already available to everyone (16).
Red believes God never gives up on anyone, even if Red ruined his own family with his money and himself largely gave up on them. Jason, though, is an exception—he has a “spark” that gives Red hope—and Red therefore won’t make him an instant millionaire. Jason gets angry again, but Red warns him not to embarrass himself. Instead, he’ll give Jason an “ultimate gift.”
Each month for a year, Jason will meet with Hamilton and Hastings, who will administer an “element” of the gift. Should Jason balk or become difficult, he’ll receive nothing. If he participates fully during the entire year, he’ll receive a “significant bequest.” Red ends by thanking Hamilton and saying he’d trade all his wealth just to say on film Hamilton was his best friend.
The tape ends. Hamilton rises and offers his hand to Jason, who refuses to shake. Hamilton leaves. Jason demands to know why he didn’t get money like the others. Hastings says, “He loved you too much to do that” (18).
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
The opening two chapters establish the main characters—Ted Hamilton, Margaret Hastings, and Jason Stevens—and set up the quest that will guide the plot.
The story is narrated by 80-year-old Theodore J. Hamilton, founder of a prestigious and powerful Boston law firm. As such, the novel uses a first-person limited-perspective: Everything that happens is something Hamilton witnesses or remembers. Jason’s journey thus is described by someone whom the novel treats as an older, wiser person. Wall photos of Hamilton standing with five individual American presidents suggest the level of influence the firm wields. Even the narrator’s name reflects history: It evokes Alexander Hamilton, one of the founders of the United States. All of this is meant to evoke respect in the reader: If Hamilton is involved in Jason’s program, it’s probably for a very good reason; if he finds Jason fit or unfit to receive Red’s final bequest, the decision will be solidly based.
The title of the first chapter, “In the Beginning,” is also the first phrase in the Bible. Stovall graduated from a Christian-based university and is a practicing member of the Christian faith. He states, through character Red Stevens, that “all happiness comes from the gifts that God has given us” (16). Though the author’s own beliefs are founded on deeply held religious tenets, he doesn’t harp on them. The book’s outreach is ecumenical, however; the story and its lessons are for everyone, regardless of religious affiliation. Hamilton and Hastings will become parental figures to Jason as the book progresses. Their patience with a difficult, but promising, young man symbolizes the Judeo-Christian belief in God’s infinite mercy; it’s also an object lesson for all parents, that they do not give up on their children but let compassion shelter them, so that they may grow to be worthy of the love they already receive. The idea reflects Love as the Greatest Gift, as characters know that they have a duty to bestow love onto others. Hamilton and Hastings always have faith in Jason and encourage him to learn to love himself, as do loving parents for their children in this tradition.
Protagonist Jason, meanwhile, needs a gesture of respect from Red, but it’s something he’ll have to earn. Jason doesn’t like this idea: He believes he already deserves it simply by being related to Red. Red, though, intends to give Jason something vastly more valuable—something Jason can acquire only by embarking on a journey into his own heart and soul. This idea reflects Giving Wealth Versus Receiving Wealth, as Jason does not receive respect simply because he is Red’s relative but will need to earn it by giving respect to others himself. Receiving respect, in the novel’s view, is itself created by giving respect, and as with the gift that Jason will receive only by giving to others, Jason will become an equal to Red, someone worthy of running his charity, only when he bestows the people he meets during his tasks with respect. The first two chapters set up this narrative arc by portraying Jason as someone desiring respect but undeserving of it because of his inability to give it. This also suggests the theme of The Joy of Service to Others, as Jason will gain respect and self-respect by serving people and thus finding his path in life. At the novel’s start, Jason feels entitled to Red’s respect and money and is wholly self-absorbed. He will later learn that he himself will receive joy by serving others, by giving joy to others. It is in working for others that he will find value. His respect and joy will not be automatically given to him, but he will create it for himself by spreading it to those around him.
