50 pages • 1 hour read
T. J. NewmanFalling: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A 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 35-42Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 35 Summary
Bill notices on the plane’s radar that four F-16s are now following them. Bill tries to convince Ben that he doesn’t have to crash the plane to right a wrong. However, Ben remembers coming home to find Sam attempting to die by suicide over the deaths of their families. Ben promised he would die with him. For this reason, Ben refuses to listen to Bill’s pleas.
Chapter 36 Summary
Jo tells Big Daddy and Kellie that Ben is a terrorist and that he has a gun. She suggests she use the code to get into the cockpit. Big Daddy points out that Ben can block her from getting into the cockpit by overriding it. She insists it’s their only option. Kellie and Big Daddy return to their seats, and Jo instructs Josip to stand between her and the passenger cabin. Jo hesitates to enter the code. Big Daddy calls on the intercom and encourages her.
Chapter 37 Summary
Bobby Adelson is the center fielder for the Yankees. They’re playing the top of the ninth when he notices the fans are leaving the stadium. An announcement alerts the players that the stadium is being evacuated. Bobby and the shortstop guess it has to do with the plane. The teams are supposed to leave and board their buses. Bobby calls out to them and suggests they continue playing because there is unlikely enough time to get away. The others agree.
Chapter 38 Summary
An alarm sounds in the cockpit when Jo enters the entry code. Bill takes the moment of distraction to attack Ben. Bill wraps his hands around Ben’s neck. They struggle, and Bill falls, loosening his grip. Ben moves first, attempting to lock Jo out of the cockpit. Bill stabs him in the neck with a pen. At the same moment, Ben fires the gun. Bill is shot in the shoulder. He slumps down in his seat just as one of the F-16s moves up to look into the cockpit. The F-16 pilot reports that the cockpit is empty. Jo finally gains access to the cockpit and finds Ben dead. She moves to Bill and helps him sit up, begging him to guide her.
Chapter 39 Summary
Everyone in air traffic control is closely monitoring the flight. The Yankees win the World Series, but there is little fanfare. The people in the stadium can hear the approach of a plane. The military officers at JFK’s air traffic controller’s office wait for the president to issue a command.
Chapter 40 Summary
Bill takes control of the plane and pulls up over the stadium. The military tells the F-16s to escort the plane to JFK. Bill tells Jo he’ll need her help to land the plane. The plane turns and air traffic control tells them where to land. Bill gives Jo instructions, but he struggles to remain conscious. Dusty worries that Bill will run off the end of the runway and hit buildings on the other side. The plane descends.
Chapter 41 Summary
Carrie and Theo watch the plane touch down on television. Bill struggles to keep the plane on the runway. The plane stops with the nose down, but rights itself seconds later. After a few minutes, the forward door opens, and a yellow slide unfolds to the ground. Big Daddy and Kellie begin unloading the passengers. Josip carries Dave off the plane. Big Daddy and Kellie clear the inside of the plane, making sure everyone is gone before going into the cockpit. They carefully carry Bill out of the cockpit. Big Daddy, Jo, and Kellie slide down with Bill.
Chapter 42 Summary
Jo visits Bill as he recovers in the hospital. Jo expresses guilt for not thinking of her family during the whole ordeal. Bill thanks her for believing in him. Jo tells him that Theo got a promotion, but also a one-month suspension. Bill and the flight attendants got four months off, and O’Malley was arrested. Kellie and Big Daddy come to visit, both healing from the effects of the gas.
Bill has a dream about Ben and Sam in which they share hot drinks and laugh together. When Bill wakes, he checks on the children, then goes downstairs to resume studying a book and some computer articles he pulled up earlier on the Kurdish-Turkish Conflict. Carrie joins him, and they discuss some information they’ve discovered, such as how Saddam Hussein used the same gas that Sam and Ben had Bill release on the plane against multiple villages in Kurdistan. Bill expresses regret that Ben is no longer living and that he can’t figure out how to fix things in Kurdistan. Carrie tells him he can’t fix things, but he can find the people who can.
Chapters 35-42 Analysis
Leadership and Willingness to Sacrifice remains a clear theme in the novel as Bill finds himself in a position where he must act against Ben or risk the deaths of everyone on board the plane. Jo’s revelation that she could enter the cockpit after telling the passengers it was impossible adds a touch of irony to the situation, but it also reveals her sense of leadership. Without Jo’s action, Bill might not have been given the moment of distraction he needed to get Ben off-guard. Bill willingly sacrifices his own safety in his attack on Ben, showing just how important it is to him to protect the souls on the plane. The fact that Bill is shot during the fight deepens this sense of sacrifice while adding to the suspense of the novel’s climax.
The secondary protocol calls to the theme of The Personal Consequences of Political Actions, but from a different perspective. This protocol comes from the president of the United States. It was a decision by the president, namely, to withdraw from Turkey, that led to the murder of the Kurdish victims and fueled Sam and Ben’s attack. The lives of many innocents now lies again in the president’s distant hands, but those lives are now ones that Newman intends the reader to be invested in: these are not only American lives but also the lives of characters she has established empathetic backstories for. Carrie’s appeal to the president in the previous chapters notably relies on pathos, an appeal to the emotions; her helplessness to sway him echoes the helplessness that drove Sam and Ben to their present actions.
That the F-16 initially reports the cockpit empty is symbolic of Ben’s death, of the change in circumstances, and in the potential for Bill to be unable to continue the flight. The plane, as a carrier of souls, is literally and metaphorically unmanned in this moment. This report keeps the suspense taut and shifts the weight of the situation to Jo’s shoulders, allowing her to serve as a literal pilot, and hence a true hero, of the story. Sam was a tragic hero in that he was attempting to do something good for his people, but failed in his logic and execution. Jo becomes a foil to Sam as she moves into position to be the one to rescue the souls on board the plane.
Once the crisis is over, Newman uses reflective dialogue to transition the tone from suspenseful to conclusionary. Jo and Bill’s conversation in the hospital gives the reader information that establishes the safety of the souls on the plane and allows the characters to express how this experience has changed them. It also creates a comparison between the surviving characters and Sam and Ben. Each surviving character feels the weight of guilt for some aspect of the experience just as Sam and Ben felt after the deaths of their families.
Finally, Newman expresses a level of success in Sam and Ben’s plan by the evidence that their story has caused Bill and Carrie to educate themselves on Kurdistan and seek a way to change the situation that inspired Sam and Ben’s actions. This also expresses the depth of character each of these people display, further increasing Ben’s sense of protection and responsibility for strangers and Carrie’s compassion for others. This again underscores Sam’s idea of the good American man, and ironically negates his opinion of Americans in general as privileged people who chose to remain ignorant about events taking place around the world. In fact, it highlights Jo’s thoughts that most people in society are “sheep.” It does seem that Sam’s view of Americans is of the sheep, but it also suggests that Bill and Carrie are the exemplars in Jo’s opinion of the “few assholes and a few exemplars” (86) who stand out among the sheep.
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By T. J. Newman
