91 pages • 3 hours read
Jeff ZentnerGoodbye Days
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A 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 26-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 26 Summary
Chapter 26 consists of a brief internal monologue as Carver reflects on the fact that he sometimes forgets his friends are dead. He compares the pain of realizing they’re gone with phantom limb syndrome, a phenomenon in which people who have lost a limb feel pain where the lost limb would be. He concludes: “I have a trinity of phantoms” (233).
Chapter 27 Summary
Carver and Jesmyn are studying at the library. Jesmyn seems upset. The reason becomes clear when she asks if he’s been telling people that they’re hooking up. He tells her no, which is the truth, and suggests that Adair may be spreading the rumor.
Jesmyn is in a bad mood for another reason. She is preparing to audition for Juilliard, a top music school, and struggling with her audition piece. She reveals that she has synesthesia, a condition in which one sense triggers another. In her case, when she plays or hears music, she sees colors. When she plays the song, it should “sound” blue, but she says it’s a yellow-green. Carver asks her what color his voice is, and she ponders the question and tells him it is “bullshit colored.”
Chapter 28 Summary
Pursuing the investigation into the accident, the Nashville police conduct an interview with Carver in Mr. Krantz’s office. The police ask multiple questions. Before Carver can answer, every single time, Mr. Krantz interrupts and says Carver is exercising his Fifth Amendment right (the right to remain silent) and declines to answer. The police are annoyed, but there’s nothing they can do. Carver is safe, for now.
Carver and Jesmyn reach out to Eli’s parents about a goodbye day. When Carver calls them, they agree immediately. Nana Betsy already told them about the goodbye day she had for Blake and recommended the experience.
Chapter 29 Summary
Carver has an appointment with Dr. Mendez. Dr. Mendez again asks Carver to tell him a story in which he is not a cause of the accident. Carver tells him about a safety engineer at Nissan, Hiro Takasagawa. In 2001, Hiro proposed a new safety feature to his boss: If a car was approaching an obstacle too quickly, wings would unfold and carry the car up over the obstacle, to safety. Hiro suggested this feature could be installed as of 2002. The boss said this safety feature would cost too much and shut the idea down, and he also fired Hiro. Hiro was devastated. He tried to kill himself by driving his car into the side of a building, but when he did, the car grew wings and carried him into the sky, where he soared away. Dr. Mendez asks what car Mars was driving when the accident happened. It was a 2002 Nissan.
Chapter 30 Summary
Nana Betsy sells her house. Carver helps her pack. She tells him that the police came by to talk to her about the accident and that did not tell them anything. Carver feels guilty, knowing that she essentially lied to protect him; he knows that for a religious woman like Nana Betsy, this can’t have been easy. She wishes him well, and they part ways.
Chapters 26-30 Analysis
Chapter 26 consists solely of an internal monologue, with the plot of the narrative not moving forward in any way. This format occurs repeatedly throughout the book (for example, in Chapter 20, also an internal monologue, and Chapter 22, a dream). These moments in which the narrative action is put on pause offer an opportunity to gain insights into Carver’s emotional evolution. So far, these moments have only served to reiterate his guilt, an emotion he has yet to shake. Later, however, they set a different mood—more like fond memories than guilt-ridden regrets. For now, however, these moments serve to remind the reader that Carver is haunted by his guilt constantly, whether asleep or awake.
Despite the pauses in action, the pacing in these chapters maintain momentum thanks to a couple of major events. First, Nana Betsy moves. This is her final exit from the narrative. It’s a conclusion to her role in the story and also in Blake’s. The conclusiveness of the moment speaks to the ripple effect theme. Blake’s death has had an unanticipated effect with Nana Betsy’s departure. Carver also loses an ally in this moment, since Nana Betsy was one of the first and only people to assure him that he had nothing to do with the accident and to never blame him for the event.
Another major event is the interview with the police in Mr. Krantz’s office. Although the interview goes as well as could be expected—Mr. Krantz effectively keeps Carver from incriminating himself—it ends on a menacing note. The detective tells Carver, “I can’t make any promises about how the DA will react to your lack of cooperation if we decide to go further with the case” (244). The comment again increases tension, suggesting that the investigation will become even more intense going forward.
Carver appears to make progress in therapy when he’s able to present his therapist with a well-crafted story that removes any link between him and the accident. His tale about Hiro Takasagawa is an example of an embedded narrative—when one smaller story is placed within a larger story. The short story has a beginning, a middle, and an end and is even poignant enough to engage the reader’s sympathy for Hiro. The accident, as Carver tells it, isn’t really Hiro’s fault, yet he feels such guilt about his self-perceived role that he tries to kill himself. In this sense, Carver is paralleling his own situation.
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