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.
Themes
The Past Informs the Present
The novel interconnects past and present, showing that we must know the truth about our past to fully understand the present. The structure of the novel makes this immediately clear, as Silas and Larry are introduced in modern day, then take turns reflecting on events from their pasts that directly correlate to what is happening in the present. This sequence occurs many times throughout the novel, but one key example happens at the end of Chapter 4, when in the present, Silas learns that Larry has been shot. Silas goes to Larry’s house to help investigate the scene of the crime. At the end of the chapter, Silas returns home to find a voicemail from Larry asking him to call back, “even if it’s late” (69). Silas reflects to himself that “it was late, wasn’t it, Larry. Too late” (69). This moment ends the chapter, leading into Chapter 5, in which Larry reflects back on what he believe caused the disruption in his friendship with Silas: the fight Carl forced Silas and Larry to have, during which Larry calls Silas a racial slur (90).
However, in the same chapter, Larry also remembers introducing Silas to Cindy Walker; Larry takes Silas to spy on Cindy, but when Silas sees Cecil harassing Cindy, Silas intervenes. This moment connects Cindy and Silas, who later begin a secret relationship, as Silas explains in Chapter 10: “this girl who would fall asleep on their blanket in the woods, how her lips opened and he’d lean in and smell her breath, sweeter to him for the cigarettes and beer” (203). For the 25 years since Silas first left Chabot, Larry has believed that he alone caused the end of their friendship by calling Silas a name; however, as Silas reveals the truth about his relationship with Cindy, Larry understands that Silas avoided him because he had betrayed Larry by not coming forward. It is only through understanding what happened in the past that both Larry and Silas can make sense of the present—why their friendship ruptured the way it did, and what must be done to fix it.
Another crucial element about the past that must be understood to make sense of the present is the truth about Silas’s paternity. As children, both Larry and Silas sense the tension between their parents. In Chapter 3, Larry reflects how strange it is when he realizes Alice and Silas have been living on their property: “But when had they moved in? And by what arrangement?” (34). Larry also notices his mother reacting strangely when he tells her about it: “He sensed he’d said too much already, though [...] For the rest of the ride, his mother was quiet” (36). Silas also notices some strange incongruities, like that “even old Carl Ott” would come to watch him play baseball (201).
As children, Larry and Silas lack the ability to connect the details, though as adults, Silas can piece together the truth: Carl Ott was his father, which is why he allowed Alice and Silas to live on his land, why Carl pitted Larry and Silas against each other, and why Ina reacted so strangely to learning Alice and Silas had come back to town. This realization about the past helps Silas to understand his current connection to Larry much more clearly and finally motivates him to tell the truth about Cindy Walker to remove suspicion from Larry.
The Nature of Friendship
The novel centers around the relationship between Larry and Silas, and in doing so, it probes the nature of friendship: how it begins, why it ends, why people need it, and how it can be rebuilt after it has been severed. The narrative follows the childhood friendship between Silas and Larry as told through flashbacks. Though on the surface, the mystery in the book might seem to revolve around who killed Cindy Walker and Tina Rutherford, the mystery at the core of the novel is what happened to Larry and Silas’s friendship to drive them so far apart.
Larry ponders in Chapter 12, “We were friends. Weren’t we, Silas?” to which Silas confesses, “You were, Larry [...] I don’t know what I was” (223). Accordingly, the resolution of the murders of Cindy and Tina comes relatively quickly. Cecil seems the most likely candidate to have murdered Cindy, but he died of cancer years ago. Wallace killed Tina, but by the end of the novel, he has also killed himself while attempting to escape the police. Less resolved by the end of the book is the fractured friendship between Larry and Silas. The two men seem to be on the path to reconciliation, but it will be something they have to work toward and build over time.
Though the novel puts its central focus on the relationship between Larry and Silas, it also investigates other friendships. The complex relationship between Larry and Wallace gives insight into both men’s loneliness and sense of isolation. Wallace believes he and Larry have a shared interest—a taste for violence—though their stilted conversations reveal they have little in common. For instance, in Chapter 9, Wallace describes his rape fantasies, which make Larry deeply uncomfortable: “Wallace, I don’t like that talk” (179). Both men continue to gravitate toward one another, however, because of their shared status as social outcasts.
After Silas finds the body of M&M on the Rutherford’s property in Chapter 2, Silas reflects that he and M&M fell out of touch when he left Chabot. Silas wonders whether “Maybe he could’ve done something” to reconnect with his old friend but reassures himself that “M&M wouldn’t have had anything to do with a constable” (16). Early in the novel, the reader may take this statement at face value, but as the narrative continues, it becomes clear that Silas has a pattern of severing friendships and other close relationships. All of this foreshadows the revelation that it was Silas, and not Larry, who was ultimately responsible for terminating their childhood friendship, and it is Silas who must take the first step in repairing those bonds.
The Effects of Loneliness
Walker explores the effects of loneliness throughout the novel, focusing on Larry in particular. Loneliness has stunted Larry’s life, keeping him from progressing forward; French notes that Larry is a “frozen in the 1960s kind of character” (64). Larry lives in his childhood home, with very little changed from when he was a boy. His only social engagements are visiting his mother at the nursing home, and since Ina is in the process of losing her memory, Larry can’t count on her for real companionship. When French questions Larry’s friendship with Wallace after they discover Wallace killed Tina, Larry confides that he “aint had a lot of options” (250). In fact, French’s routine visits to check Larry’s house for guns were “the closest thing I had to a friend till Wallace came” (250).
Larry’s isolation is compared to a prison sentence; though he served no prison time for his suspected role in killing Cindy Walker, Silas argues that “Larry’s done time his whole life” (224). Being so distanced from everyone else has caused Larry to only live a half-life, and it is only through forming real connections and bonds again that he can be set free from this pseudo-prison.
Franklin also explores loneliness through other characters, such as Wallace Stringfellow. Though Wallace is a less sympathetic figure than Larry and is known to have murdered at least two people—Tina and M&M—the narrative still portrays his loneliness as something to be pitied. Larry explains to French, “We were both lonesome [...] I think that’s why he came to see me in the first place. I don’t think he had anybody to look up to” (250). As inexcusable as Wallace’s actions prove to be, he may not have become so callous and unfeeling if he’d had people in his life who cared for him.
On a different level, Silas also experiences loneliness. Unlike Wallace and Larry, Silas is not a social outcast, but he has difficulty connecting with people, choosing to push them away. Silas describes his strained relationship with his mother—how “he could barely look at her” (155). As an adult, Silas reflects, “He’d refused to see the truth, that she was starving from loneliness” (155). In her attempts to reach out to Silas, Alice ended up inadvertently pushing him away, just as Silas has pushed away most of the important people in his life, including Larry.
