47 pages • 1 hour read
Tom FranklinCrooked Letter, Crooked Letter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009A 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 13-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
In the hospital, Larry switches through television stations, thinking about how his mailbox is always getting knocked over. Larry knows it’s common for teens to do this as a prank but recalls the day he realized that his was the only mailbox on the street being targeted: “He was tired of buying mailboxes” (231). Larry remembers drawing comic books with Silas when they were children and how Silas drew a Frankenstein comic strip. Larry keeps switching through channels and thinks about Cindy “buried somewhere only Cecil knew” (232). Larry remembers the night of the haunted house and how both Cindy and Silas ignored him. On a news channel, Larry realizes they’re reporting about him as the suspect in Tina Rutherford’s murder. Larry calls out to the guard outside, Skip, and asks to speak to French. French won’t be back until tomorrow, but Larry wants to wait to talk to him.
Larry recalls Wallace coming to visit him one night, drunk, and confiding to Larry, “I done something” (234). Larry offered to teach him mechanics, but Wallace said it wouldn’t work out, “Cause I ain’t worth a shit” (235). Larry wanted to protect Wallace, but after learning the truth about Silas, Larry realizes his so-called friends don’t deserve his protection. Larry once heard a solution to kids knocking over mailboxes is to fill the boxes with cement so whoever tries to hit it breaks his arm, and he decides he’ll do this once he gets home.
Chapter 14 Summary
Silas wakes up hungover and finds several texts from Angie asking where he is. Silas goes to The Hub and gets coffee, food, and Aspirin from the owner, Marla, who tells Silas not to be so hard on himself. Silas goes to the Town Hall, where Voncille tells Silas a news reporter named Shannon has been looking for him. Silas drives to Larry’s place, passing the auto shop, which has been vandalized. On Larry’s property, Silas notices fresh four-wheeler tire tracks and footprints. He decides to visit Wallace Stringfellow.
At Wallace’s place, Silas radios in the address to Voncille and notices Wallace’s dog, John Wayne Gacy, who barks at him ferociously. Wallace comes out and won’t meet Silas’s eye but tells him he hasn’t been four-wheeling on the freeway anymore. Silas asks to go inside to hear over the dog, and Wallace reluctantly complies. Inside, Silas looks at Wallace’s collection of snakes and notices Larry’s old mask. Silas asks Wallace about it, and Wallace gets nervous. He goes outside, and Silas follows. Wallace frees John Wayne Gacy, who attacks Silas as Wallace fires at him. Silas rolls under the porch, where he shoots the dog. Wallace continues trying to fire at Silas, but Silas gets around him and shoots Wallace in the leg. Wallace runs off. Silas makes it into the house but can’t find a phone. He falls against a table, knocking over an aquarium with a rattlesnake in it, and he passes out as the snake crawls past his head.
Chapter 15 Summary
At the hospital, Larry continues to ask for French but learns there’s been an incident French is seeing to: Silas was attached by a pit bull owned by a man he went to investigate. Larry asks if it was Wallace Stringfellow, and Skip confirms he’s right. Larry insists on talking to French about Stringfellow, so Skip radios French. Larry tells French about the mask and how Wallace was the one who shot him and killed Tina Rutherford. Once he finishes, Larry asks how Silas is doing, but French radios off.
Later that night, French comes to visit Larry, bringing the zombie mask with him for Larry to identify. Larry asks after Silas again and learns he’s recovering from surgery; Silas’s arm may be permanently damaged. French tells Larry that Wallace is dead but won’t confirm the details of how that happened. Larry tells French that Wallace was his friend. French thinks Larry has “strange taste in friends,” but Larry replies, “I ain’t had a lot of options” (250). Larry thinks Wallace didn’t have much of a fatherly figure in his life and fixated on what he believed Larry was, with Larry trying to be that way, too. Larry tells French about the conversation he and Wallace had on the night Tina disappeared. French questions why Larry didn’t report it, but Larry tried to tell Silas before he was shot. French thinks “it’s long past time the two of you talked” (251). French leaves, and Larry ponders over his friendships with Silas and Wallace, wondering if it’s his fault that Wallace turned out the way he did. Two nurses bring in a roommate for Larry: Silas.
Chapters 13-15 Analysis
Despite his hardships, Larry has remained a positive, kind person, but in Chapter 13 he has become jaded and beaten down. After living such a solitary, lonely life, Larry places great importance on the friendships he has made, even when those friendships have proven to be uneven. Though Silas hasn’t spoken to Larry for years and avoids him in town, Larry continues to look back fondly on their brief friendship as children. Similarly, Larry knows that Wallace is strange and maybe even potentially disturbed, but he continues to make efforts to rehabilitate the young man and give him opportunities to better himself, such as when he offers to let Wallace be his apprentice. Despite this almost blind faith in these friendships, Wallace and Silas have both severely let Larry down. By Chapter 13, Larry now knows that Silas carried information that could have proven Larry’s innocence and kept him from being socially ostracized for all these years, and Larry also strongly suspects that Wallace was the one who shot him and tried to frame him for Tina Rutherford’s murder. Understandably, Larry feels bitter about his situation and wonders if maybe he “was wrong about the word friend” (236).
Unbeknownst to Larry, Silas has taken it upon himself to prove Larry’s innocence and try to make reparations for the past. This effort leads Silas to Wallace Stringfellow’s home, where the two men eventually engage in a fight for their lives. Larry’s only two friends act as doubles for one another. Both relate to Larry in a familial way: Silas and Larry are half-brothers, though neither realizes this until adulthood, and Larry confides to French that Wallace looks up to him as a father figure, “a daddy or uncle” (250). Both Silas and Wallace face social stigmas, Silas because he grew up black in a small Southern town, Wallace because he is considered poor white trash. Both Silas and Wallace connect Larry to a murder he did not commit and allow Larry to take the fall to save themselves. However, in Chapter 14 the two men separate themselves when Silas risks his life to clear Larry’s name. If Wallace feels any guilt for what he’s done to Larry, the reader is never made aware of it, but guilt motivates Silas into action and allows him to prove himself as the true friend he never was to Larry in the past but desperately wants to be in the present.
Monsters play a symbolic role throughout the novel. Like with many classic monsters, society ostracizes Larry for being different. Larry has even earned his own nickname over the years: “Scary Larry.” In Chapter 13, as Larry flips through the channels, he comes across a Dracula movie playing. Later, Larry remembers drawing comic strips with Silas when they were children and how Silas illustrated his own version of Frankenstein. These two classic 19th-century characters are perhaps two of the most recognizable monsters of all time. Frankenstein, in particular, connects to Larry’s story. In the original novel, the titular character, Victor Frankenstein, looks and behaves normally and is treated accordingly, but the creature he creates becomes a murderous social outcast because of his grotesque features and odd behavior. Like Frankenstein’s monster, Larry was prematurely judged for being different, and though he never actually becomes a murderer, Larry essentially serves a life sentence by being forced into a life of solitude.
