CROOKED LETTER CROOKED LETTER

MISSISSIPPI

The American South:

 A historical, political and cultural divide from the rest of the country created by the
strong colonialist history of the region
 Used to be very rural area, now more industrialized and the fastest growing area in
the USA
 Mostly dependent on cultural plantations
 High percentage of American-America population

Mississippi – “big river”:

 3 Mil. Inhabitants: 60% white 37% African-American (US State with the highest
percentage of AA)
 One of the poorest states
 Hurricane
 White people going to private schools and black people going to public schools

Jim Crows Laws:

 Enforced racial segregation in the southern US giving African-American ‘separate but
equal’ status
CHAPTER 1
 His Name Larry Ott alludes to “odd” (strange, peculiar)
 In many respects Larry represents/ epitomizes (darstellen) a stereotypical white
Southern:
o Keeps his surroundings neat and tidy
o His diet consists largely of fast-food and Coke
o If he was permitted he would doubtlessly possess a gun
o Also, he displays a racist tendency: is dissatisfied that he cannot afford a
better nursing
o Home for his mother (hers is “full of blacks”)
 The weather:
o If had stormed the night before and another storm is just approaching.
o Rough weather in literature or film often foreshadows (vorausdeuten auf,
ahnen lassen) un pleasant or even dramatic events.
 Symbols / recurring (wiederkehrende) motifs:
Larry’ mailbox: represents the point where Larry’s solitary little would is connected
to the outward world. The deplorable conditions of Larry’s mailbox (battered, its
red flag pulled off, tilted) stands in stark contrast to his well-kept house and grounds.
It must have been vandalized
Snakes: represent danger
The colour ‘red’: symbolizes blood
The zombie mask: alludes to (anspielen auf) horror and death

LARRY OTT
 Forty-one years old
 Leads a lonely life on an isolated farm somewhere in Mississippi (it was one mile to
his nearest neighbor)
It is the farm he inherited from his parents
 A single man (no wife or children)
 His father has died; his mother lives in a nearby nursing home, suffering from
Alzheimer’s disease
 although Larry’s parents are no longer physically or mentally present in Larry’s life,
he seems to have (or have had) a close bond to both of them

Father:
Larry pursues the same trade as his father: works as a mechanic
He runs the garage he inherited from his father,
Continues to drive his father’s Ford pickup and his tractor;
He wears the same type of clothing as his father did, e.g. his steel-toed work shoes
 this suggest that Larry probably was closely attached to his father, that he admired
him and therefore cherishes (in Ehren halten, schätzen) his memory

Mother:
 Larry cares for her as far as possible
On her good days he visits her, takes food and also a photo album to the nursing
home because he has been told that reviving the past helps to activate her memory
 we gain the impression that Larry’s childhood and youth still play a major role in
his present-day life

 Larry works as a mechanic, but “only in theory” as there are no customers to his
repair shop (apart from some Mexicans staying in the motel across the street)
 Larry keeps his premises (house and surroundings) in good condition; his farm is well-
kept, neat and orderly
 On the farm he devotes much attention to the care of his chickens
Larry even constructed a movable pen so that they can have fresh food every day,
He addresses them as “ladies” as if they were human beings
 the reader feels that Larry’s hens replace his family and friends
 He follows a very repetitive daily routine; the course of his day is highly predictable
 perhaps his rigorous daily routine helps Larry to gain stability and provide him
with a feeling of belonging ho his home and surroundings
 Usually there are no calls on his cell phone and there is hardly any mail in his mailbox
apart from bill and a package of books from his book club from time to time
His bedroom is “piled (aufgehäuft, aufgetürmt) with paperbacks”, which shows that
he must be an avoid (eifrig, begeistert) reader
 Larry has few visitors apart from some teenagers harassing him by night and his only
friend Wallace Stingfellow
 Outward appearance:
His hair is still brown and choppy as he cut it himself; his beard, however, is already
beginning to turn grey
 As a child he used to be chubby but now his face is lean
 Due so some incident in the past Larry is no longer allowed to own a firearm
 The police regard him as a “person of interest” (i.e. he is suspected of having
committed a crime) and therefore keep him under close observation; from time to
time Chief investigator French calls on him to search his house
Larry endures (ertragen, aushalten) these visitations without protest although he
perceives (empfinden, wahrnehmen) them as “unnerving”
He shows understanding because “If he’d been missing a daughter, he’d come here
too.” “Sure, he understood.”
 From his childhood days Larry had kept a monster mask hidden in his closet
Also, he has sympathy for monsters “because all monsters were misunderstood”
 When Larry is shot in his house by an intruder wearing his own monster mask Larry
does not defend himself but he opens his hands
Furthermore “he didn’t get to deny adducting the Rutherford girl last week or Cindy
Walker twenty-five years ago.”
He then willingly accepts to die: “Okay with Larry.”

 Larry is a loner, an outsider, a social outcast

He is ostracized / rejected by the locals / the local community
He struggles to achieve a sense of belonging
STRUGGLE FOR BELONGING
LARRY
 Finds stability in routines
 No relationships to co-workers or
friends  ostracized
 Has part of his family left but
mother cannot remember him!
THE CRIMINAL CASES
CINDY WALKER
 Went in a drive-in movie with Larry
Ott
 since than nobody ever seen her
(25 years ago)
 Larry is/was suspected but couldn’t
be arrested because np dead body
was found
 Big load news
 Stepfather wanted Larry to arrested
MORTON MORRISSETTE (M&M)
 M&M disappeared
 people had found his plaid fedora
in a tree near a creek; in a sump
 Was shot & buzzards picked at his
corpse
 Maybe killed in his own house
CHAPTER 2
SILAS
 Belongs to black community
 Chabot: lives in a town where
people respect him
 Used to be an athlete (good
reputation, probably liked by girls)
 No close long-term relationship to
women
 Did not have a father present in his
past
TINA RUTHERFORD
 Went somewhere – don’t know
exactly where
 roommates confirmed Tina never
came back
 every cop looks for her ‘now’
 19 years old, daughter of the
Dumber Mill
LARRY OTT
 Someone broke in his house and
took a firearm which was hidden
 Shoot Larry
 found with a close-range shot to the
chest and a pistol in his hand;
there are no signs of a fight
 the assailant must have tried to
evoke the impression that Larry
committed suicide
 shortly before shot Larry left a
message on Silas’s answering
machine urging him to call back
THE SETTING
 Chabot – little town in the American south
 About 500 inhabitants
 Description of the town center ≜ Silas’s view from his office in the town hall
 Chabot’s only have two full-time employees
o Miss Voncille, the town clark
o Silas Jones, the Constable
 both their jobs are financed by the owners of the lumber mill.

Chabot is portrayed as a decaying, rundown, derelict village.

A village in decline characterized by economic depression

FOURTEENTH AVENUE
 Somewhere outside Chabot lies ‘Fourteenth Avenue’
an unkempt (=ungepflegt), squalid (=verwahrlost) living area with a few primitive
houses and some trailers
inhabited by poor, uneducated whites so-called ‘rednecks’, i.e. the lowest social
class / the dregs of society
 Silas thinks of it as ‘white trash Avenue’
 The Residents’ lives are determined by neglect, unemployment, a lack of future
perspectives, dilapidation (=Verfall), delinquency (=Kriminalität)

L A R R Y O T T (subsequent chapters)
  He is one of the ‘usual suspects’ for chief investigation Roy French because he is
believed to have something to do with Cindy Walker’s disappearance 25 years ago
 Larry took her out to a drive-in movie but she has never returned home however, he
has never confessed having committed a crime
 His house is full of horror books
 Voncille calls him ‘Psycho’ (short form of ‘psychopath’)
Roy French refers to him as ‘Norman Bates’ (a pathological killer of woman in the
movie ‘Psycho’)
Angie labels him as ‘Scary Larry’
 Larry attended the same school as Silas
In contrast to Silas he didn’t play basketball but spent his time reading books
 Silas knows he opens his workshop “regular as clockwork” even though he has never
had any local customer since he took over after his father’s death
 Silas describes him as taller and thinner than during his childhood, thin a thin face
and tight lips
 As a child he looked somewhat slow (his mouth always hung open) although he
wasn’t; he was smart, knew weird things: he had a special fascination for snakes and
possessed unusual knowledge about them
 Due to Larry’s resemblance with his mother’s brother, his uncle Colin refers to him as
‘my little doppelgänger’
Larry has inherited Colin’s soft and feminine appearance and behavior as well as his
hanging shoulders and rather fat physique
 Altogether Larry is a quite sickly boy, suffering from asthma and various allergies.
Besides, he undergoes a period of stuttering.

SILAS JONES

SILAS’ RELATION TO LARRY OTT

 When Silas returns to Chabot, Larry sends him voicemails but Silas never calls back
Silas drives past Larry’s workshop ignoring him when he is standing outside, not even
reacting when Larry waves at him; instead he directs his eyes straight ahead and
drives on
 something prevents Silas from accepting Larry’s attempts to get into contact again
 Silas went to school with Larry but stresses that “That’s all”; he immediately regrets
having aroused the impression that he might know more about Larry
 Silas tries to avoid having to fell further details
 After French informs Silas that he has been to Larry’s garage in the morning but that
it wasn’t open, Silas is seriously alarmed
As he has to deal with a rattlesnake in somebody’s mailbox, he asks Angie to drive to
Larry’s house in order to check if everything is alright
 Has always known that Larry has been ostracized since Cindy Walker’s vanishing but
now he is even sorrier for him as he hears everything that has happened
 Is strikes Silas that Larry is the only person who still calls him ‘Silas’; nobody has never
used this name since his mother died
 Having heard Larry’s voice on the phone he is unable to move for half an hour
remembering “him and Larry when they were boys, what Silas had done, how he’d
beaten Larry when Larry said what he said.” (p.23, ll. 21-24)
  Silas must have quite upsetting memories of his childhood days with Larry

FAMILY AND SOCIAL CONTACTS

 His only relation we know of his mother, who died eight years ago
In Silas’ childhood the two of the lived in a white man’s (Carl Ott) hunting cabin
without electricity, running water and gas
 Like mayor Mo he volunteers as a firefighter
 Although Silas gets on well with the people around him, he has no desire to meet
anyone – except his girlfriend Angie – in his free time

SILAS’ OCCUPATION AND CAREER

 Silas is Chabot’s only police officer
 People address him as “32” (referring to his number as a baseball player in former
years) or “Constable”  signs of respect
Before returning to his home in Southern Mississippi…
o He had played basketball but was forced to give up because of an injury,
o Joined the navy,
o Gone to the police academy,
o Worked in Oxford, Mississippi, for ten years (monotonous, unchallenging
work with little responsibility and competence)
o Applied for the job in Chabot, which promised more variety and challenge;
possibly a step up on the career ladder
 In Chabot Silas needs to inform Chief Inspector French for all cases  has no far-
reaching competence in his job
 Is dissatisfied with the tasks he has to fulfil as a police constable
Is equipped with three firearms and a teaser but in the past two years he has never
fired his pistol on the job
The town council cannot afford a proper police car for him,
He needs to share his office with the town clerk
 his hopes have not been fulfilled
 Strive to move up higher in the police hierarchy

CHAPTER 3
 Difficult relationship with his violet, redneck father Carl
  Carl always picks up a black women (Alice) and her son (Silas) on his way to drop
Larry off at school
 Alice and Silas have no winter coats and are shivering the cold
 Larry gets aware of “how unusual, inappropriate it was for black people to be getting
out of a white man’s truck”
 Larry is one of the few white students at Chabot’’ mostly black school (result of
government-mandated racial integration)
 Pickups of Silas and his mother stop after Larry’s mother Ina found out about them
 she herself drops Larry one day and hands Alice and Silas coats with the comment
“You’ve never minded using other people’s things”
 After that incident, Carl completely stops picking up Alice and her son
 Larry as overweight, neither athletic or mechanical kid, tries to gain his father’s love
by helping him with his garage
 Larry loves listening to Carl’s racist stories
 creates illusion of being happy when listening to stories
 When one day Larry takes a rifle from his father and heads into the forest, he passes
Cindy Walker’s home (has romantic / sexual fantasies with her)
 Flashback: Larry made a racist comment to a black girl at school because he wanted
to be a part of a group of popular boys, gets attacked by that girl and other black
students
 Larry ends up in front of Silas’ and Alice’ shack, Silas discovers him and they shake
hand, form some kind of relationship over Alice’s car and Larry’s rifle, Larry allows
Silas to shoot it and lets Silas borrow it for some time
 Silas is grateful for that  rifle as a means to secure food

T H E C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F S O C I A L R E J E C T I O N (Larry Ott)

CAUSES
 Bullied by black boys and ridiculed by white because he doesn’t is the stereo typical
white boy
 Passion for books, sick as a child
 No talent for mechanics, feminine, compared to his uncle who is his dad despises

ATTEMPS TO COPE
 Tries to please his father by laughing at his racist jokes
 Sneaks around Cindy’s house
 Tries to impress white boys by calling Jackie “Monkey Lips”
 Tries to hard to be a part of a group  get’ used for amusements
 Makes contact with Silas through his rifle

CONSEQUENCES
 Still ignored by his father
 Tricked by white boys
  alone again
 gets even more angry
 changes behavior -> still rejected

LARRY’S STRUGGLE FOR ACCEPTANCE

LARRY AND HIS FATHER

 Strained father-son-relationship:
Father and son have hardly any physical contact (apart from awkward handshakes
and whippings)  no sign of affection
Carl despises (verachten, geringschätzen) his son for his weakly constitution and his
lack of mechanical skills; considers him as useless, inept (unfähig, untauglich)
 In spite of his father’s rejection Larry desperately tries to impress him and win his
respect:
Larry perfectly carries out the simple tasks his father assigns to him at the garage;
Imagines the pride of telling his “daddy” about having been to the drive-in-movie
with his friends, in a car
 On Saturday afternoons in the workshops, when Carl Ott entertains his friends by
telling racist stories; Larry hides in order not to be in his father’s way;
He cherishes listening to his father’s voice

 all Larry’s sincere efforts do not lead to the desired effect

Carl Ott maintains his hostility and contempt (Verachtung)

After his unlucky jump from the swings Carl even gives him a belt whipping for having torn
his clothes

LARRY AND THE OTHER KIDS AT SCHOOL

 At school Larry is an outsider, a misfit; he is excluded from the class community
 The white boys only speak to Larry when they are alone; when in groups, the amuse
themselves by ridiculing him
 The black boys bully him and are aggressive towards him (“bumping him as he
passed, knocking the books off his desk as if it were an accident” etc.)
 One day Larry seeks to gain Ken and David’s recognition (Anerkennung):
They promise to take him to the drive-in movie to watch a horror movie if he calls
their black class-mate Jackie “monkey lips” to her face
Although Larry in fact insults Jacky (and thus assumes a role that does not correspond
to his personal attitude), the town white boys let him down and just walk away while
the black kids are taking revenge
Larry has been betrayed by the white boys; he is utterly devastated: “He’d never
been that angry.”

 Larry’s attempt to achieve acceptance fails miserably

LARRY AND SILAS

 From their first encounter in Carl’s car Larry feels somehow connected to Silas
  Although Larry has undergone deeply humiliating experiences at school he pursues
his endeavors (verfolgt weiterhin seine Bemühungen) to make friends
 On his first visit to the cabin he greets Silas with a handshake, teaches him how to
use a rifle and ends up borrowing him the rifle for a certain time (a token of his
friendship)
On his way home, he also leaves his gloves for Silas

 he treats Silas with respect, trusts him, cares for him

(signs of true friendship)

CHAPTER 4
 Call from Angie, Larry has been shot but is still alive
 Silas heads over to Larry’s house and stars investigating
 Takes not of the blood and the gust left on the floor where Larry’s body was found
 Place hasn’t changed in the past 20 years
 Chief French arrives and starts more formal investigation
 Silas preserves footprints and tire tracks
 Notices the beer in Larry’s fridge (weird because Larry didn’t drink)
 Larry wasn’t allowed to have or carry guns
 Message on Silas’ answering machine from Larry, sent the night before, hinting to
something important that he wanted to talk about with Silas

CHAPTER 5
  First day of summer holiday, Larry anticipates going to high school in fall and hopes
not being bullied anymore
 Starts mowing the lawn, reflects on the time he has spent with Silas in spring
 Larry visits Silas at the cabin in the woods after he is done mowing the lawn, watches
Silas practicing baseball
 The both watch Cindy Walker sunbathing
 Incident: Carl and Cecil try to take off her towel when she comes outside after having
taken a shower
 Silas intervenes, telling them to stop but running away when they come after him
 Larry just watches and hides, goes back to search for Silas who started to play
baseball again
 In the night, Carl asks Larry for the rifle that he borrowed, Larry denies having it, is
bullied into admitting that he gave it to Silas
 Larry’s mother interrupts, asking Carl how long Alice and Silas will be allowed to stay
in the cabin
 Carl storms out
 Later on, Larry’s mother is praying to God for Larry to find “a special friend” as
always, not aware that Larry had already found that one in his mind
 Next day, Larry visits Silas again, realizes that Carl has followed him
 Carl – drunk – wants to get his rifle back from Silas
 Wants Silas and Larry to fight over to rifle, both initially refuse, but are bullied in
doing so by Carl
 Larry stammers again (a habit that he had actually grown out of) and begs Silas to let
him go
 Carl cheers Silas on who continues to hold Larry down
 Larry calls Silas a “nigger” due to his frustration
 Silas lets him go, gets the rifle and Larry notices the same anger in Silas’ eyes as he
saw in the black girl’s at school
 Silas flees and “Larry was left alone, on the ground, in the weeds, with his father”

A F A I L E D F R I E N D S H I P ? (Silas and Larry)

 Carl as a driving force of breaking up the friendship
 Larry insult Silas during their fight (result: not respected by Carl and Silas)
 Friendship has to be kept a secret as Alice and Carl disapprove of it
 Don’t have common background, interests and beliefs (e.g. molesting Cindy  Larry
laughs at it)
 Larry trusts Silas with Cindy

CHAPTER 6
 Silas us eating breakfast at his favorite restaurant and starts investigations afterwards
  Begins at Larry’s shop, recalls returning for his mother’s funeral, driving past Larry’s
shop, noticing Larry looking out the window at the street, not paying attention to him
– and doing exactly the same thing when he (Silas) is on his way back home after
clearing out his mother’s house
 Goes to Larry’s house and collects more evidence: broken glass from a windshield as
he assumes, some tracks from a four-wheel drive, and the butt end of a marijuana
cigarette
 Feeds the chickens
 Goes through Larry’s old magazines, remembering seeing some of them when he and
Larry were friends; goes through the attic and discovers several papers including
contracts for the sale of parts of Larry’s land to the Rutherfords; bills for a cell phone;
and a shoebox of photographs
 Phone bill is weird, only ever called one number
 Box of photos: Silas takes note of how time is moving backwards in the photos to
when Larry was a baby – held on Alice’s lap

PAST
 Silas remembers his life at the age of 13: a relatively good life in an all-black
community in Chicago, a good school, but a bad boyfriend for his mother, whose
arrest led them to sell all their belongings and disappearance to Chabot
 Silas is reluctant in going to the South
 Long bus ride to the South, afterwards Silas and his mother ride along with a bus
driver who seems to want sexual favors from Alice and who helps Alice when Silas
attempts to run away and when they are being robbed (including their coats)
 Alice and Silas end up in Chabot making their way to the house in the wood

PRESENT
 Silas’ reaction to the photo of his mother with Larry, noticing that her smile was the
one “she used around white people, not the one he remembered when she was
genuinely happy”
 Gets a call from Angie who wants to meet him for lunch, feels that Silas is different
 Silas agrees
 Is “vaguely aware he was stealing evidence from a crime scene” but is not fazed by it
since “the only ghosts here knew the secrets already”

THE JOURNEY SOUTH

 Used to lead a decent life still his relationship to Oliver (mother’s boyfriend) is distant
 Mother is working, loving relationship
  certain sense of belonging (friends, food, single parent)
 Rift in relationship to his mother during the journey (she requires him to be quiet and
hits him)
 turning point in Silas’ life
 no sense of belongingness (friends, Larry, relationship to mother becomes distant,
poor…)

CHILDHOOD IN CHICAGO
 lives with his mother Alice and her boyfriend Oliver in a small house
 has his own room with a TV
 gets hot food everyday
 plays baseball with other boys
 attends a decent school

 leads a decent & comfortable life,

the little family is relatively well-off as Alice and Oliver both have jobs,
it is an all-black neighborhood
 Silas has not yet had much contact with white people
 in his own world, he feels at home, he has feeling of belonging

 On the journey Silas and Alice have lost all their belongings
 Now they ate at the bottom of the social scale
 Disturbed mother-son relationship
 Confronted with open racism against blacks for the first time; Silas is not familiar with
the codes of behavior between white and blacks

 The journey is a turning point in Silas’ life, he has been uprooted, deprived of belongings

CHAPTER 7
 16-year-old Larry tells his parents about his date with Cindy Walker
 Flashback: it was Cindy who had asked him out
  Days between her invitation and the actual date: Larry is both excited and nervous,
makes friends with guys at school who used to bully him (are impressed about his
date)
 Larry is assaulted by Cecil when he picks up Cindy
 Cindy insists on driving Larry’s mother’s car, is speeding and deliberately runs over a
snake, takes them to a deserted roadway
 Cindy tells Larry that she only wanted the date as a cover for a visit to her boyfriend
 Confesses that she is pregnant
 Larry is disappointed yet follows her plan, drops her off at a nearby road and
agreeing to picking her up later
 Shows up at the movie drive-in as planned, makes it look as though she’s with him in
the front seat and disappearing when one of the guys from school starts to head in
his direction
 Cindy doesn’t show up at the time planned
 Larry waits for an hour but still no sign of her
 Goes to her home to tell Cecil and Cindy’s mom that she is missing
 They call Larry’s parents and the police, Larry has to tell them everything
 Omits the fact that Cindy was pregnant and that he only pretended to be at the
drive-in
 Larry is forced to tell the whole truth when Cindy still hasn’t returned after a few
days have passed
 People don’t believe him but there is no evidence so Larry does not get arrested
 Carl’s business suffers from what his son did in the eyes of community, becomes an
alcoholic and breaks his neck in an accident
 Ina in turn gets more absent-minded and sad, Cindy’s parents move away
 Larry joins the army, is trained as a mechanic there and eventually discharged
 Returns to Chabot to take care of his mother who has surrendered to Alzheimer and
who eventually moves into a nursing home
 Silas instead has left to attend high school someplace else
 Larry becomes more and more isolated over the years
 “Nights he spent alone, seldom thinking of his mother’s old prayer, the one where
she asked God to send him a special friend. Until it was answered.”

T H E D A T E (Larry and Cindy)

How does the date influence their lives or change their behaviors?
BEFORE THE DATE

LARRY CLASSMATES PARENTS

 Boring  Saw Larry as an  Dad despises him for
 Uninterested outsider not being a real
 Says that he has a  Bullied him man / boy
date  Get more in contact  Proud after hearing
 becomes more after knowing he has that L. has ha date
interesting for mates a date  offers his (big) car &
 Excited to go out  He is accepted; they pays for the theatre
give him advices  Mom very excited;
 was positive and full tells him how to
anticipation behave

 mom was happy for him;

really interested

AFTER THE DATE

LARRY PARENTS
 Confused  Excited
 does not know what to do / say; how  want to know how it was
to handle  shocked / angry after knowing what
 Is a suspect now happened
 Everything ‘upside-down’
 they don’t do their usual activities
like going to church (mother)
 Communication completely gone

 dad not talks at all with Larry

mother self-isolated herself from social
life; doesn’t (take part) volunteer in church
anymore; speaks to her chicken

THE IMPACT

Larry’s date marks a turning-point in his life.

He is now stigmatized as a potential rapist and murderer. All his social ties have broken
down completely. Larry is marginalized, ostracized. His life (and his family’s) has been ruined
(due to false allegations).

THE IMPACT II
“Their lives had stopped, frozen, as if a picture, and days were nothing more than empty
squares in a calendar (p.104, ll. 21-23)
 complete loss of social contact
 family live in total seclusion
 deeply numbed, totally devastated, absolutely shattered
 have reached the law point in their lives

LARRY
 Does not go to school anymore
 Spends his time reading in his room
 Later: joins the army, learns a trade
 Reliably runs the garage even though there are no customers

 Perseveres in spite of all hardship manages to maintain stability in his life

MOTHER
 Stops going to church
 Minds her chickens (replace human contact)
 Gets more and more absent-minded
 Finally gets Alzheimer’s disease

 Increasingly drifts off

FATHER
 Increasingly consumes alcohol
 Eventually even dies in a drunk driving accident

 Escapes from everybody life

CINDY WALKER
 Takes advantage of Larry’s naivety, good-naturedness honesty, sincerity, reliability,
despair
 Misuses Larry for her own benefit
 Uses the date with him as a pretext to make Cecil allowed get to go out

Ruthless, despicable behavior

Cindy knowingly humiliates Larry

CHAPTER 8
 Silas has a lunch with Angie
 They talk about how Larry is still unconscious, how French believes that Larry has
shot himself
  Angie believes Larry might have done so either because of guilt about having
murdered Cindy and / or Tina Rutherford or because of everybody suspecting him of
doing so
 Silas confesses his friendship with Larry to Angie and how he and his mother came to
Chabot
 Also explains how their friendship grew despite Larry’s awkwardness (fondness of
snakes, reading horror novels)
 Tells story of haunted house: Larry had a particularly horrible zombie mask and was
thus invited to be part of a haunted house party, everybody (including Silas himself
and Cindy) rejected him after the party
 Angie asks Silas whether he had ever gone out with Cindy, but Silas denies that
 Angie is called to an accident and Silas visits Larry who is barely alive and in coma and
afterwards visits Ina with whom he can barely talk due to her Alzheimer’s disease
 Silas remembers the one time he was at Larry’s home (with the family gone) mowing
the lawn because he never had an opportunity to do so, Larry got all the credit for
that  Silas feels lack of a father back then
 In the present, Silas puts the puzzle pieces together: that Larry’s father impregnated
Alice who was them sent to Chicago and who reconnected with Carl when she
returned to Chabot
 When revisiting the cabin where Silas used to live, he encounters a young white man
driving a tractor in the middle of the road
 Warns the man against bad driving
 Silas notices a white pillowcase and makes suggestions towards the Ku Klux Klan
 The man name is Wallace Stringfellow, Silas lets him go with a warning
 Silas reflects on how his mother uses to ask him what was missing out of him; on how
badly he treated her, rejecting her love and affection; and on his weird friendship
with Larry
 Arriving at the cabin, Silas is shocked about the decayed condition the cabin is in,
covered in vines, weeds, and plants)
 Someone had broken into the cabin
 Silas realizes that someone has dug a grave underneath his former bed

CECIL WALKER
 Grows up in indescribable poverty
 As a teenager he attempts to impress his mates by swinging from a tree  he fails
 Illusion to Larry’s failed jump from the swing
 struggles for acceptance (like Larry)
 As an adult he is unemployed; spends his time drinking and smoking; neglects his
house
 useless
 Enjoys playing tricks on others, e.g. throwing fireworks at Cindy
 mean, malicious / spiteful
 Is the person who laughs hardest at Carl Ott’s racist jokes
 a racist
 again: strives to achieve or maintain social bounds
 mistreats and molests his step-daughter
(“tries to pull down the towel”, “little whore”)
  sexually abusive
 fiercely attacks Larry before his date with Cindy
 completely uncontrolled
 has sexual desires for Cindy himself

 Fulfils the stereotypes of a typical redneck (alludes to ‘White Trash Avenue’)

CHAPTER 9
 due to her disease, Ina hadn’t noticed things disappearing from the barn, or the
traces of someone being there
 Larry did notice, but never told his mother
  Larry discovered that the intruder was a young, skinny, blond boy whom Larry scared
away one day wearing the zombie mask
 Years later, a young man – Wallace Stringfellow – came to visit Larry, Larry recognizes
him as the intruder
 Wallace claims to be a cable TC salesman, but Larry soon figures out that he’s not
 Wallace keeps visiting, and confesses that he is not a TV salesman, was just curious to
meet Larry due to his reputation, didn’t matter to him whether Larry had killed Cindy
or not
 Wallace does eventually confess to imagining what raping and killing her must have
been like
 Over the next months, Wallace keeps coming to Larry’s house, smokes marijuana
(that he buys from M&M), throws the marijuana butts in Larry’s yard
 Reveals that he has a dog named John Wayne Gacy
 Gives Larry a gun for Christmas
 Admits that he was frightened of Larry on his very first visit years ago and that he is
actually sexually exited by the thought of Larry killing Cindy
 One night, after Wallace had drunk and smoked a lot, Wallace pushes Larry to tell
him the truth about what happened to Cindy claiming that sometimes women
wanted to be raped and hurt
 Larry doesn’t give in to Wallace, Wallace throws a tantrum, breaks Larry’s windshield
and headlights and storms off
 After Wallace is gone, Larry realizes that he thought of Wallace as a friend, the
“special” friend that his mother had always prayed for

WALLACE STRINGFELLOW
 Early twenties, bit under six feet, has a goatee, shirts one / two large on him & khaki
shorts  general: looks filthy
 Drinks much alcohol; smokes weed (with M&M)
 A bit crazy / insane in his head  sick fantasies
 Doesn’t respect things like sexual experienced of Larry
 Many similarities to Larry
 drops out of school (quit)
 was lonely; people made fun of him; don’t want to be with. Him
 Is violence (addictive)
 Kind of evil, callous (kills his animals)
 Racist

F R I E N D S H I P (Larry and Wallace)

LARRY SILAS
 Accepts Wallace as his friend  Actively tries to come close to Larry
 Pleased he is liked by somebody  Outsider himself
  Thinks about leaving him his garage
 gives everything in order to “gain” one
special friend
 Fascinated by Larry ( revolver as a
gift to him)
 a horror-version of Larry
 outsider who has nobody to
…………….belong to

THE IMPACT of Wallace’s visits on Larry

 After a long period of loneliness and social exclusion Wallace’s interest in Larry brings
him relief
 Although being aware of Wallace’s false friendship Larry is ready to accepts his
unpleasant traits of character in order to satisfy his hunger for human contact
 Wallace having finally disappeared Larry takes the active part and tries to get into
touch (reversal of roles)

 Bonding with Wallace makes Larry again sense of belonging

SYBOLIC MEANING: ZOMBIE MASK

 Larry’s intention: to impress his class-mates (i.e. his peer group) to be acknowledge
and accepted in their community; to satisfy his hunger for social contact
 Larry hides his true self, denies his real identity
 He consciously adopts the role of “scary Larry” (anticipates his later nickname)
 Paradoxically Larry manages to attract attention while wearing the mask / playing the
role of a monster

 the zombie mask characterizes him as a social monster

T H E L A C K O F A F A T H E R (Silas)

LARRY
 ‘Good work, boy’
 Larry enjoys his father’s
recognition
 stable family life (in Silas’s perception)
 Decent house, owns / will own
huge area of laud, father runs own
business
 no financial worries middle-class
background
SILAS
 Growing up with a single mother
Silas lacks a father’s appreciation
and a male role model
 illegitimate child
 No material possessions (lives in a
cabin / trailer, no proper clothe at
first)
 under privileged / lower-class
background

But:

an outcast; rejected by the community fully accepted in his peer group, admired
for his athletic skills by both black and
whites
 illustrates the ambiguity of belonging

Both Larry and Silas desperately struggle for belonging and for acceptance by their peers
and family.
Larry’s seemingly better chances turn out to be useless.

C H A P T E R 1 0 (present/past)
 Body under Silas’s old bed was that of Tina Rutherford, had been lying there for a
while
 Silas had lied about the reason for being at the cabin
  Silas directs traffic for Tina’s funeral and takes a shift standing guard over Larry in the
hospital, who remained in his come and who was being watched by police
 Silas becomes aware that a “stingy” man had tried to see Larry and catches a glimpse
pf the man himself
 Also becomes aware that Angie is desperately trying to get hold of him, warns the
unconscious Larry that when he wakes up, things are going to be bad for him
 Silas gets a call that Ina is having a good day and visit her, she recognizes him as
Larry’s old friend, also recognizes Larry in the photograph that Silas shows her
 Ina refers to Alice as their maid, tells him that Alice became pregnant and had to
leave her employ
 Slips back into dementia
 Silas spends time with Angie and she firmly tells him to finish the story he began
earlier
 Narrative slips into past: the beginning of the affair between Silas (then a high-school
baseball star) and Cindy who was desperate to get out of Chabot and change her life
 Affair went for several months and although they kept it secret, Alice still knows
about it and urges Silas to stop it
 The next weekend – Silas tells this in the present time – Cindy disappeared: Silas was
the boyfriend Cindy was supposed to meet when she had that arrangement with
Larry
 Silas thinks Cindy was never really pregnant
 Tells Angie that he and Cindy argued  he left her where she was supposed to meet
Larry; when he got back home, Alice arranged for him to go to another high school
 He forgot about Cindy and Larry and didn’t think of the consequences until he moved
back to Chabot
 Silas and Angie come to the conclusion that it must have been Cecil who had killed
Cindy
 Go back to Angie’s home, where they spend a sexless night together
 Next morning, Silas drives to Larry’s home to feed the chickens and to contemplate
his next move; he knows now what is missing out of him: courage
 Silas gets a call that Larry has finally woken up

MOTHER–SON–RELATIONSHIP

LARRY AND INA OTT

 Ina is a genuinely loving, caring and protective mother; dotes on her son
  Takes an active interest in her son’ feelings (suffers with him for his lack of social ties;
is exited and hopeful when he is going to have a date)
 Tries to mediate between her husband and her son and but always remains loyal to
her husband and therefore never actively protects Larry from his father’s contempt
and violent behavior
 As a deeply religious person Ina seeks God’s help for her son to solve his problems;
every single evening she prays with Larry at his bedside
“Please help Larry read good tomorrow, take that stuttering away and please help his
breathing thing, and send him a special friend, Lord, just one for him.” (p.69 ll.6-9)
 Adult Larry returns his mother’s care and affection by visiting her as often as possible
in her nursing home and by now praying for her in turn
“As he did every night before his sleep Larry prayed for his mother, that the following
day might be a good one for her, … or that, it if was time, the Lord take her quietly. In
her sleep.” (p.124, ll.45-47)

 mother and son are connected by an emotional bond

SILAS AND ALICE JONES

 Like Ina, Alice is a truly loving, caring and protective mother, who dotes on her son
 Raises her son in harsh and hostile conditions and supports him in every respect
 Takes on several jobs to make end meet and to make sure Silas grows up in more
favorable circumstances than herself
 Attempts to prevent her son from getting into trouble (is opposed to him having a
white girlfriend; send him to Oxford after Cindy’s disappearance)
 It is only as an adult that Silas understands and acknowledge his mother’s efforts; he
realizes that as a boy and a young man he permanently lied to himself; he “refused to
see the truth, that she was starving from loneliness”
Silas in fact is the only person who Alice has contact to her private life
 He then deeply regrets not having retuned his mother’s affection in his childhood and
youth;
Is sorry for having shown neither gratitude not compassion;
Being unable to make up for his former emotional coldness and rejection – as his
mother is dead now – makes Silas feel guilty

 strained and one-sided relationship

A S E C R E T R E L A T I O N S H I P (Silas and Cindy)

CINDY:
 Wants to go to Chicago with Silas
  For her the relationship is a way out of Mississippi and away from her abusive
stepfather
 Scared because of her stepfather would have killed her and Silas if he found out
about the relationship
 Uses Larry to cover up the relationship

ALICE:
 Wants Silas to give up Cindy
 Knows about the danger of having a mixed-race relation
 Very worried about him  mother instincts
 Reminds him of what happened to Emmet Till
 Silas is all she got  cannot lose him
 Doesn’t want him to make the same mistakes she did in the past  better life for
Silas
 Cindy’s father is a danger to Silas
 Worried about Silas’ future life, she wants a normal life and with Cindy it’s not going
to be possible  better future without Cindy

SILAS:
 Cindy is his first love
 He feels ‘honored’ that a white girl is interested in him
 Scared to tell the truth about Cindy when she disappears, because he fears violent
reactions from a still racist community in the south and because he is not aware of
the consequences of not telling the truth
 Selfish because his career and success as an athlete (giving him a sense of belonging)
are more important to him that clearing Larry from the suspicion of being a murderer
 Betrays Larry and their friendship
 Actually, relieved to be sent away
 “Forgets” about Cindy and Larry: ‘Cindy just ran off – my mother never wrote about
Larry’.

SILAS’S SECRET

FOR THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS:

 After Cindy’s disappearance Silas does not speak out for fear of violent reactions by
Cecil and by the whole blatantly racist community
  With his mother’s support Silas leaves his old life behind and pursues his career as an
athlete in Oxford
 There he “forgets” about Cindy and Larry:
Thinks she has just run off (or: prefers to think?)
His mother never mentions Cindy in her letters
Silas is busy in Oxford, successful, has a new girl-friend
Is not aware of the consequences his silence has on Larry’s life (or: he shuts his eyes
to…?)
(selfish? Thoughtless?)

 chooses to ignore his own involvement in Cindy’s disappearance

Escapes from reality
Suppresses his memories

NOW:
 Silas consciously faces the past
“Wasn’t till I came back down here that I saw the mess I made.”
 Having undergone a painful interior struggle since his return to Chabot Silas finally
reveals the truth to his girl-friend Angie
 He plucks up the courage to admit that, in fact, he was Cindy’s boyfriend and that he
let Larry take all the blame
 Silas now sincerely regrets his former inactively
He would be glad if he could relieve the past and make things undone

 makes a decisive step to right the wrongs of the past

(and thus to finally achieve real belonging)

CHAPTER 11
 Larry’s wakes up
 Learns that Silas saved his life; that Tina Rutherford is dead and that she was found in
the cabin on his property and that he is the suspect of her murder and of shooting
himself
  Asks about the chickens and worries whether they were fed, is relieved when he is
told that Silas fed the chickens
 Larry is interviewed by Sheriff Lolly and French
 French mentions several pieces of evidence: the fact that Larry never sold the piece
of land with the cabin  suggests that Larry milled both girls and then wanted to kill
himself out of remorse
 Larry’s mind races through memories and images, can’t understand why he is
suspected
 French tells him that the only way he’ll ever feel better about what he did “is to own
up and pay the price.”

CHAPTER 12
 Silas arrives at the hospital, and interrupts French and Lolly’s interview of Larry
 Reveals to everyone what really happened on the night of Cindy Walker’s death,
telling Larry that Cindy had not been pregnant and implying that it was mostly likely
Cecil who had killed her
 Larry comments to Silas that they used to be friends, implying that a friend would not
have done what Silas did to Larry
 Silas doesn’t know what he was to Larry
 Silas is interviewed at the police station but does not admit to being Larry’s half-
brother
 Silas is taken off guard duty
 Goes back to hospital, wants to talk about what happened the night that Larry was
shot, although Larry wants to talk about what happened around Cindy’s death
 Larry also wants to apologize for what happened the day when his father made him
and Silas fight over the rifle
 Silas is having drinks at the bar with Irina, the flirt
 Irina has no clue: one of her other roommates went on a “date” with a guy who had a
trailer full of guns and also a collection of snakes
 That guy was Wallace Stringfellow and Irina also tells Silas where he lives
 Silas remembers meeting Stringfellow and also the pillowcase that he had with him
and that Larry once said a good way to transport a snake was to use a pillowcase
 Silas drives Irina back to her house, they are about to have sex when Silas remembers
Angie and thinks of Larry and he decides to leave

CHAPTER 13
 During a thunderstorm he remembers his childhood including Cindy; Silas; him and
Silas drawing and coloring together; their teenaged years; the zombie mask
 TV shows “a show about a serial killer and the serial killer who imitated him” and “a
king cobra rising with its hood fanned”
  Larry sees the news about him and what he’s suspected of having done to Tina
Rutherford, and realizes he needs to tell French something: how after Tina
Rutherford disappeared, Stringfellow visited him and said he had “done something”
 Larry actually wants to tell French everything he know about Wallace and that it is
likely that Wallace had killed Tina
 Reflects on how only four people in the world “knew about the cabin where that
Rutherford girl was buried. (Him. His mother), who can’t remember anything. Silas
Jones. And Wallace Stringfellow.”
 Also thinks about his mailbox and how it had been damaged over the years as an
intimidation, and how he’s determined to make it secure and stable

CHAPTER 14
 Silas wakes up hangover but still goes to work and to the hospital
 Feeds Larry’s chickens, finds out Stringfellow’s address from Ms. Voncille and tells
her he’s going out to interview him
 Sees Stringfellow’s dog in the yard and finds Stringfellow on the porch
 Manages to get into the house, find aquariums full of snakes and a zombie mask that
Stringfellow says he can’t recall getting
 When Stringfellow goes outside to calm the dog, Silas feels that he needs to call for
back-up but is unable to grab his phone or radio
 Stringfellow gets a gun and aims at Silas but Silas is faster and shoots him in his thigh
 Stringfellow escapes in the woods and Silas tries to call for help, clumsily breaking
one of the aquariums, coming face to face with first the zombie mask and then a
rattlesnake

CHAPTER 15
 Larry learns about the attack on Silas and who was responsible for that
 Tells French everything he know about Wallace being the man who shot him and the
one who raped and killed Tina
 French brings the zombie mask, Larry identifies it as his
 Larry is being told about Wallace’s death and that he should watch the news in order
to find out how that happened
 French asks Larry why he and Wallace became friends, Larry claims that he didn’t
have many options to choose from
 Larry explains that he had suspected what Wallace had done for a while and wanted
to tell Silas but never returned any calls
 French just says that it is time for Larry and Silas to finally talk and be honest with
each other
 Being alone again, Larry reflects on the relationship between past and present, and
wonders what would have been different in the present if things had happened
differently in the past
 Silas is brought to Larr’s room after surgery
T U R N I N G P O I N T O F L I V E S (Larry and Silas) (Chapter 11-15)

(NEW) LARRY:
 Is determined to change his life:
o to take an active part
o to assume responsibility
 o to fight back
 deliberately build up strength / self-confidence / self-esteem

 becomes aware of the false nature of his ‘friendship’ whit Wallace Stringfellow, who
has turned out to be anything but a true friend
When questioned by CI French Larry says:
“I thought he was my friend.”
“…but I ain’t had a lot of options.”
“We were both lonesome,” he said. “I think that’s why he came to see me in the first place. I
don’t think he had anybody to look up to, a daddy or uncle, and crazy as it sounds, he chose
me.”

Remembering how he saw Wallace one in church, as a boy:

“Larry saw a little of himself in him maybe. Tis strange lonely kid. Maybe, to this kid, …, Larry
was even a kind of hero.”

Larry reproaches himself for not having understood Wallace’s real motives (trying to
identify with Larry, wanting to emulate him)

Feels he might have prevented various tragic events (Tina Rutherford’s murder, Silas
being almost killed in the confrontation with Wallace, Wallace taking his own life) if
he had a deeper insight into Wallace’s state of mind

(NEW) SILAS:
 By finally revealing the truth about his relationship with Cindy Walker Silas
o Acknowledges his past mistakes
o Admits his former wrongdoing and tries to compensate for it
o Owns up to his guilt

 He now tries to make amends / to atone for his wrongs

o By taking care of Larry’s chickens and his mother
o By regularly visiting Larry himself despite being ignored or even rejected
o By cleaning up and preparing Larry’s home for his return
o By returning Larry’s rifle “to its rightful place”

Silas (to Marla in The Hub):

“Problem is, what I don’t remember ... Guilt, he said”
Marla: “… don’t be hard on yourself. Now and again it’s okay to let yourself off the hook. But
…………..that was his trouble, wasn’t it? Letting himself off the hook had been his way of life.”
Silas accepts the pain in his arm as penance, he has stopped taking medicines to ease the
…………..ache.

 Both Larry and Silas now begin to assume responsibility and to establish a new sense of
self.
CHAPTER 16
 Narration tells readers that Silas’ arm will heal eventually, that Silas had asked to be put in
the same room as Larry, and that on the news, the story of Silas’ confrontation with
Stringfellow is a headline, the report revealing that Stringfellow killed himself, and that
evidence had been found that linked Stringfellow with the death of Tina Rutherford
 After the news report, Silas tells Larry that Carl was being his (Silas’) father
  Larry in turn admits that he suspected that (given the comment with the coat)
 Afterwards comparison on how it was to grow up with Carl (Larry) and how it was to grow up
without him (Silas)
 Larry asks to put in another room

CHAPTER 17
 Angie who reconciles with Silas and invites Larry to her church and finally French, who tells
both Silas and Larry that Stringfellow has also been linked to the death of M&M, and that the
press is determined to interview them both, adding that he wants them to just stick to the
fact of the story and not get into whatever personal disputes are between them
 Ms. Voncille brings flowers; the Mayor jokes with Silas about directing traffic; a couple of
deputies tell Silas about the rest of the snakes found in Stringfellow’ home
 Silas is discharged, promising to visit Larry again
 After he left, Larry tells the nurse that doesn’t want to be moved to a new room

CHAPTER 18
 Silas is interviewed by a reporter, reporter thinks she is going to win afterward with that
story
 Mayor and Voncille interview Silas afterwards, Silas is being promoted
 Thanks them, but claims that he’ll only accept their offer after they’ve read the article in the
paper
 At Angie’s, he is being pampered; the next day he visits Larry with a box of mail
 Larry doesn’t say anything, and Silas stays for an hour
 Silas then goes and visits Larry’s mother
 Afterwards, he and Angie clean up Larry’s house
 Silas spends a moment with the rifle that he had been given by Larry, which he had carefully
cleaned

CHAPTER 19
 During the next four visits from Silas, Larry is consistent in staying silent
 Larry gets a positive report from his doctors; goes to the front door of the hospital, where he
sees all the press waiting to interview him and heads back to the elevator
 The same night, he walks out of the hospital unnoticed – expect by a security guard who calls
Silas
 Silas gets in his jeep and, after a rough start, drives off to find Larry
 Gives Larry a ride through town and to Larry’s house
 Larry stays silent mostly except for noticing that the jeep is running rough
 Silas asks Larry whether he might be interested in repairing it, and Larry says it’ll be a while
before he’s able to work again
 Larry is given a plastic bag with his wallet, keys and cell phone and as Silas pulls away, Larry
calls to him to bring the jeep by the next day
 Entering the house, Larry discovers the cleaning and other things that Silas and Angie have
done for him (including installing satellite TV and having fed the chickens properly)
 Larry goes to bed, reminding himself to call Silas in the morning and get him to pick up some
parts for the jeep

A NEW START (Chapter 16-19)

 Both Silas and Larry are making steps forwards…

o Overcoming the past
o Forgiving / asking for forgiveness
o Repairing their broken friendship
 o Reconciling
o Establishing new bonds

 They both have…

o Accepted their responsibility in past events
o Become more mature
o Found their place / “home”
o Gained a new sense of belonging

 Overcome the ambiguity of belonging

(their lack of belonging has been healed)