63 pages • 2 hours read

11.22.63

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011

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Part 2, Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “The Janitor’s Father”

Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary

Jake visits the “Center Street Market” where he finds Frank Dunning in the back. Frank is the head butcher. He charms the ladies who come to buy from his counter with clean jokes and a ready smile. Jake follows Frank after the market closes and discovers that he is living in a boarding house not far from where his family lives.

Jake rents a small apartment. He tells everyone who asks that he is scouting real estate for a company out of Wisconsin. As he settles in Derry, Jake tries to decide how to best deal with Frank Dunning. He thinks of killing him, but he worries that although he has Harry’s side of the story, Harry might have gotten the facts wrong. Jake decides his best option is to wait until the night of the attack. For this purpose, Jake buys a gun: a .38 Police Special.

One evening, Jake follows Frank into a local bar. A man named Chaz Frati joins Jake at the bar and tells him a few things about Frank, including his wife’s name: Doris. Chaz says that Frank was married once before and had a little boy, but that the wife took off with the kid and never came back. Chaz says Frank is a mean drunk, and this is what caused the separation from Doris. Jake thinks that Frank will go on a bender on Halloween night, leading to the murders.

Jake follows Frank a few more times, watching as he takes his kids to a Disney double feature one Saturday, and to a ball game on another. On another Saturday, Jake sees Frank visiting the graves of his parents. After that, he feels like he knows everything he needs to know about Frank Dunning.

Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary

In the weeks leading up to Halloween, Jake scouts out places to wait for Frank to attack his family. Jake discovers a house behind the Dunning home is for sale. He decides the backyard will be the perfect place to wait.

On Halloween morning, Jake wakes with a stomach bug. Once again, he remembers Al telling him, “The past does not want to be changed. The past is obdurate” (240). With some supplies, he goes forward with his plan. He parks his car and walks to the house behind the Dunnings’ where he plans to wait for Frank’s arrival.

The man Jake dubbed No Suspenders arrives and tries to stop him from rescuing the Dunning family. No Suspenders, or Bill Turcotte, is the brother of Frank's first wife. He believes Frank killed his sister and her infant son. Bill wants to see Frank go to prison. However, Bill begins to have a heart attack, allowing Jake to break free.

Jake arrives in the home but struggles to stop Frank. Bill follows and stabs Frank, but not before Frank kills one of his sons Tugga and injures Doris. Jake, who is also injured, manages to escape the house and drive back to Lisbon Falls where he locates the rabbit-hole with Al’s help and returns to 2011.

Part 2, Chapters 7-8 Analysis

Frank appears to be an amiable gentleman who knows how to use his charm to increase business at the grocery store where he works. He also seems like a good father, visiting his children on weekends and taking them to events. He is even a dutiful son who visits his parents’ graves on a cool, raining afternoon. This characterization goes hand in hand with the theme of adults in Derry ignoring the darkness around them. It also causes trouble for Jake since he cannot impeach Frank’s character in order to stop him before the night of the attack.

There are many coincidences in the lives of the Dunnings and Jake’s own life. The fact that Frank appears to be an alcoholic with many of the same behaviors as Jake’s former wife Christy is one. Another is the AA meeting taking place in the church just down from the Dunning home on the night of the attack. Al said the past does not like to be changed, but there are also strange harmonies that Jake has yet to recognize.

Just as Al had trouble in his attempts to save Carolyn Poulin, Jake also has trouble on the morning he plans to save Harry and his family. He wakes with a stomach bug that causes him to become weak and dehydrated. This seems to echo the cancer that stopped Al from saving President Kennedy. Jake battles through the pain, only to run into Bill Turcotte. However, in a more benevolent harmony—for Jake at least—Bill suffers the symptoms of a heart attack, allowing Jake to escape and save the Dunning family. There will be other benevolent harmonies later in the novel as well, foreshadowing the truth Jake will eventually discover about their cause.

When Jake returns to the rabbit-hole, he worries the changes he has made will have caused the rabbit-hole to disappear. This underscores once more how little Jake and Al know about the nature of the rabbit-hole and how little they know about time travel.