54 pages • 1 hour read
Jeff HirschA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Stephen hazily experiences being dragged back to the hotel and wrapped in several blankets. He feels relieved to be dying or at least descending into nothingness. Jenny eventually drags him to a different part of the casino, where she has built a fire to prevent them from freezing to death. She tells him that someone could still come to hunt them, and Stephen insists it doesn’t matter; everyone is either dead or will die, so life is pointless. Jenny embraces him, but he feels nothing.
Later, Jenny tries to convince him to move, insisting that they must leave the casino but that she won’t leave without him. Stephen, still overwhelmed with despair, refuses. When she begs him to think of himself and what he wants, he insists that he has. Jenny gives up and leaves but says she wants him to follow. Once alone, Stephen thinks about what he wants and sees Jenny’s sketchpad in the corner. He looks at it and realizes that the last thing she drew was him huddling under blankets in the barn; she drew him taller, as he jokingly asked her to do. Stephen realizes that he wants to feel that peaceful again and must find a way to make the world better than it is. He goes outside and finds Jenny, who expresses sympathy for his loss and promises that they can make the world better together.
As they go to leave, they see two men with rifles and uniforms investigating the building. Jenny realizes they pose a threat to Settler’s Landing and runs off; she and Stephen follow the two scouts back to a camp with at least 20 soldiers and the enslavers that attacked Stephen’s family. They both realize that Fort Leonard has offered Settler’s Landing up in exchange for defense and rush back to tell the Greens, hoping to convince them to leave.
At the Greens’ house, Stephen and Jenny find Marcus and Violet sitting at the table grimly. The teens try to warn them about the enslavers, but the Greens do not react as badly as they expect. Jenny, in disgust, points out that they’re never going to leave, and Stephen realizes that Settler’s Landing hired the mercenaries and enslavers to attack Fort Leonard.
Marcus explains that he didn’t know they were enslavers; Caleb hired them as mercenaries, working out a deal that allowed the enslavers to store things in the Landing while they explored. Violet insists they must talk to Caleb, but Marcus points out that he must already know. Furthermore, if the community votes against the mercenaries, the mercenaries will just attack the Landing instead. Violet insists that they must stop prioritizing their survival at the cost of other lives. Marcus fights back, but Jackson mentions the day they witnessed a massacre, pointing out that the people at Fort Leonard are about to experience the same thing without warning. Moved, Marcus takes Jackson to gather the people of the town.
Jenny says that she is going to stay and defend her town. Stephen insists that he go alone to get their belongings from the casino. He then goes to his father’s grave instead, making a marker for it with his father’s name: Stephen R. Quinn. Stephen shares a name with both his father and his grandfather. He picks up the knife, knowing he lied to Jenny and knowing he had to.
Stephen approaches the enslavers’ camp, determined to avenge his father and help the Landing by killing the mercenaries’ leaders. As he approaches, he’s grabbed from behind and panics until he realizes his captor is Jenny; she tells him that she saw through his lie and knew he was up to something. She insists that they work together to help Settler’s Landing. Before they can attack the jeeps, however, the camp prepares to move. Stephen and Jenny see a backpack of grenades and decide to grab it. Jenny buttons up her Red Army jacket and prepares to cause a distraction, ordering Stephen to get the grenades. She kisses him and walks into the middle of the camp.
The enslavers are so bewildered by Jenny’s appearance that they don’t shoot. She begins to speak in fake Chinese, puzzling them further; she then pretends to gesture to an imagined army and takes off. Stephen rushes for the grenades, narrowly avoiding being shot, and throws a grenade at a truck, exploding it. Stephen and Jenny rush for Settler’s Landing but find nearly every building in the village on fire. Stephen reassures her that everyone probably made it out. They follow the sound of gunfire to the Landing’s residents, who have shored up defenses behind the hill leading up to the baseball field.
Stephen joins Violet, who is tending to a dying man—Will, to Stephen’s shock and horror. Violet explains that nobody expected the fight and that the Henrys soon joined the enslavers. As he looks at Will’s body, Stephen realizes that the entire situation is pointless and nonsensical. He joins Marcus, Jackson, and Sam, who are shooting at the soldiers, and tries to remember military tactics. He realizes someone must distract the soldiers from behind. He goes to do it alone, but Jackson follows and they encounter Jenny, to Stephen’s dismay. Jenny explains that they must act so that Marcus and the others don’t run out of ammunition. Stephen accepts that this will likely mean his death but realizes at the last minute that the Henry house is nearby; they can enact the same plan that got them into this mess to get out of it.
Stephen, Jackson, and Jenny run for the Henry house. When Stephan and Jenny explain to a confused Jackson what they plan to do, Jackson is concerned it won’t work. However, he relents when Stephen promises he won’t leave again. They approach the panicked animals; Jackson shoots four times into the air, and Jenny opens the gate. They use guns to herd the animals toward the soldiers. Most of the soldiers flee, but those that don’t end up crumpled underneath the stampede. The scarred enslaver who fought Stephen and his father refuses to leave the machine gun, prepared to shoot the residents of Settler’s Landing; Stephen jumps him and attempts to strangle him. The scarred man gets the upper hand eventually and begins strangling Stephen, thanking him for introducing him to “new friends.” As Stephen falls unconscious, he has a vision of his mother and father together. He hears a thunderous sound and passes out.
Stephen comes to, but someone is dragging him across the ground. He panics, and the person dragging him pours water across his face, cleaning him off. He opens his eyes and realizes Jackson has saved him. He looks around the war-torn, destroyed baseball field and sees the body of the enslaver by the Jeep, bleeding out; Jackson begins to cry, apparently having shot the enslaver to save Stephen. Jenny runs to them, revealing that the battle is almost over and that 20 of their own, including Will, are dead. They stand up and realize that the entirety of Settler’s Landing is on fire.
The Landing residents begin to panic despite Tuttle’s efforts to direct them to put out the fire and use trees to build firebreaks. Stephen, Jenny, and the other teens grab buckets and run for the school, where the youngest children were sent during the fight. Stephen, Jenny, and Jackson go into the burning school, struggling to breathe, and find the children in the main classroom. Stephen instructs Jackson to get the children out and tries to coordinate with Jenny to rescue the books. They grab handfuls of books but are trapped by the fire and debris. They plan to drop the books and jump through the fire, but then Jackson leans through an open window 15 feet above and calls for them. Stephen and Jenny grab the desks and make a precarious ladder, but Stephen refuses to leave the books. They form a chain, pass the books up, and finally go up themselves; Stephen falls backward as the desks collapse, but Jenny grabs his arm and saves him. They run away from the school as it burns and collapses inward. The children stand in unity and watch the devastation. As they wait, a group of about 40 people emerges from the trees—the residents of Fort Leonard, ready for a reckoning.
Jenny, Jackson, and Stephen send the other children off with Derrick and go to meet the newcomers, hands lifted in peace. The Fort Leonard residents are of all ages and look ragged and scared. Their leader is a tall man with a revolver and an eyepatch. The man and Stephen talk; the leader quickly assesses that the Landing ran into trouble with enslavers after hiring the enslavers to attack Fort Leonard. Jenny explains the situation but tells the man she doesn’t think he and his people should thank the Landing residents for changing their minds. Before they can say anything further, Marcus, Sam, and the others arrive with guns, leading to a standoff. Stephen insists on peace and forces the issue by explaining that the violence resulted from his prank. Jackson insists that his father and the others put the guns down and choose peace, and they eventually relent. The Fort Leonard people do the same, and the two leaders introduce themselves to each other. Marcus asks the leader, Stan, for help, and Stan and his followers agree and begin to mingle with the Landing people, helping them put out the fires.
Months later, Stephen tutors the children in the new log cabin school. He is covering for Mr. Tuttle, who is still recovering from smoke inhalation. Stephen’s shyest student, a little girl named Claudia, gets embarrassed when he asks her to read aloud and runs out of the school. He chases after her and finds her staring at the graveyard, where there are 23 wooden crosses from the violence several months before; the deaths included her entire remaining family. She questions why they must learn on weekends and if Stephen will take over for Mr. Tuttle when he dies, which makes them both laugh. Claudia then questions why the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is even important. Stephen insists that it makes people believe other worlds are possible. She reads aloud, soon forgetting Stephen is there as she grows absorbed in the book.
Later, Stephen walks through the town. The burned houses have been replaced with log cabins. He walks to his father’s grave, cleans it off, and stays there until Jenny finds him. She is accompanied by her horse, Wind, whom she bartered for with items scavenged from Starbucks. Jenny has been riding him farther and farther out every day and always has new stories to tell of abandoned cars or houses or animals running wild. After lying in the grass together for a while, she and Stephen ride back to town, where Jackson—busy cleaning gutters—greets them happily. Their parents quiz Jenny about what she saw over lunch. Eventually, Jenny reveals that she plans to ride past the mountains and scout for new settlements of either enemies or friends. She promises to always come back. To the Greens’ surprise, Stephen announces that he’s going too, and they all go to pack up.
As Stephen packs, Jackson appears and offers his books for Stephen to travel with. Stephen studies him, realizing that he’s changed and will change more by the time Stephen sees him again. He suddenly can’t find the strength to move and must force himself outside. Jackson leaves to play baseball. The Greens give Stephen and Jenny a tearful goodbye, but as Jenny prepares to leave, she tells Stephen, who is staring longingly at the baseball field, to go join the players and keep an eye on the town. She insists that he choose what he wants, and Stephen admits that he wants a home. Jenny kisses him and leaves on Wind.
Derrick calls to Stephen, who runs after him to the field delightedly. Everyone is there to watch the game, including the Greens, who are happy that Stephen stayed. Stephen looks toward the Henry house and thinks about the outcome the family faced—after the violence settled, Marcus advocated for them to stay, feeling that the Henrys were the Landing’s problem. However, in the wake of Will’s death, Caleb and the others lost all their power and influence. Stephen hits a home run and runs for home base, laughing.
Jenny’s use of her Chinese heritage to frighten the enslavers is a form of poetic justice, as it allows her to weaponize the very thing for which she has been victimized. At the same time, the fact that must pretend to speak Chinese highlights the pathos of her situation. She never achieves any real understanding of her culture or background; instead, like other characters, she must base her behavior on stereotypes despite clearly wanting to connect with that aspect of her identity (as evidenced by her choice of the last name Tan). Her ultimate decision to explore the world beyond Settler’s Landing similarly suggests dissatisfaction with that community’s all-American culture, even once the Henrys are no longer in charge.
That Jenny remains the only Chinese American character could suggest that what makes her heroic, from the novel’s perspective, is precisely the fact that she has had a conventionally “American” upbringing—i.e., the fact that she is not “really” Chinese. However, the inclusion of Fort Leonard as an invisible enemy suggests a more complex portrayal of the “other”—racial or otherwise. The people of Settler’s Landing assume that the residents of Fort Leonard constitute a fierce, violent opposition, but this proves untrue, suggesting a parallel condemnation of the anti-Chinese sentiments characters express. With communication and a willingness to view others as human, Hirsch implies, cooperation and kindness prevail.
Some parts of the novel, however, do show that violence is necessary to survive. Jackson’s choice to shoot the enslaver to save Stephen’s life is key to the novel’s presentation of children as being forced to grow up quickly in the postapocalyptic environment. Jackson grows from a boy afraid of being shot to a boy willing to shoot someone to save a friend’s life. After this event, however, he grieves heavily—a reminder that taking a life is not a trivial action and a sign of Jackson’s ultimate humanity and goodness. Part of being human, according to the novel, is grieving all loss of human life, however evil it might have been. The novel does not treat the lives of Will and the enslavers as worthless; even though they were not “good” people in the sense that they did not contribute positively to others’ lives, they still have value as human beings. Their loss is not a net positive but an intense weight on the community and individuals who took their lives.
That the novel treats the death of even its villains seriously bolsters its broader point about morality—namely, that all humans are capable of both evil and good and that the tension between Individualism Versus Communalism as Survival Strategies is not fully reconcilable. The people in the Landing are not as perfect as they try to seem; they kill others without real cause out of fear for their own safety and are willing to hire visibly dangerous people for their own protection. The implication is that the desire to survive can drive people to act harmfully; if people feel safe and cared for, they have less motivation to harm others. However, some elements of the text complicate this dynamic. For example, the enslaver is better off than many others due to his technology and wealth, yet he consistently exploits and abuses others. This implies that societal dynamics cannot be reduced to simple questions of good versus evil, individualism versus communalism, and precarity versus stability. A person who decides they deserve more than others may destabilize society even if everyone has enough to live; alternatively, choosing the “good” of one community could harm others. Stephen and the others do not come to a perfect solution, but by choosing community over isolationism, they come a step closer to building a new world.
The imagery of “log cabins” replacing the former houses of the Landing ends the novel on a related question concerning Tradition Versus Toxic Nostalgia in American Culture—specifically, whether the residents are starting an entirely new community or simply modeling their society on an even earlier version of American identity. While log cabins are practical and realistic given the setting, they also allude to the early European settlers of America. The novel thus implies that the post-Collapse world can't start over with something entirely new: They still remember the past and cannot avoid who they once were. Nevertheless, the novel suggests that there is value in the effort to begin fresh.