Crossroads

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Sections 1-2

Part 1, Sections 3-4

Part 1, Section 5

Part 1, Sections 6-9

Part 1, Sections 10-12

Part 1, Sections 13-19

Part 2, Section 20, Pages 373-450

Part 2, Section 20, Pages 450-479

Part 2, Sections 21-22

Part 2, Sections 23-24

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 2, Sections 23-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Easter”

Part 2, Section 23 Summary

In Becky’s second semester of senior year, she increasingly pulls away from her family, devoting herself to Tanner and her newfound faith. She plans to go to Europe with Tanner over the summer, where he will play some small European venues. She has had no contact with Clem since their falling out the night of the Crossroads concert, but she finally takes a phone call from him early one Saturday morning. He is still in New Orleans; the military has not yet drafted him, and he is beginning to wonder if they ever will. Although he plans to make up with Becky, the conversation does not go well. He is annoyed that she split Aunt Shirley’s money after he stuck up for her to Russ, and that she is still dating Tanner, of whom he does not approve. She angrily hangs up after telling him he makes her sick.

Gig, Tanner’s agent, calls Becky and tries to convince her that leaving for Europe would be a disastrous blow to Tanner’s momentum. At a church service, she has a second experience of feeling God’s presence, like the night of the Crossroads concert. Afterward, she feels guilty for possibly damaging Tanner’s career with the Europe trip and tries to talk him out of it, but he wants to prioritize experiences with her over his career.

After Perry’s breakdown, however, Russ and Marion derail her plans by taking all of her money from Aunt Shirley to help with the expenses; they consider it a loan they will one day pay back. By this time, Russ and Marion have figured out that Perry used all of his own and Clem’s money. Loan or not, Becky is furious, feeling she is being punished for Perry’s mistake. With her personal savings left from working at a restaurant, she has enough for one year at community college or a cheap version of the Europe trip, and she considers the choice an easy one.

When the summer comes, Becky and Tanner travel through Europe cheaply but excitedly, saving money by staying with friends they make along the way. Becky enjoys the time away from her family, who she feels has completely abandoned and disappointed her. As she and Tanner make their way to Germany, she realizes her period is late.

Part 2, Section 24 Summary

The year is now 1974, and Clem is working as a day laborer in Peru. He plans to be there for two years—the same amount of time he would have served overseas if the military had ever drafted him. Through letters that Marion writes him, the reader learns that she and Russ are soon moving to Indiana, as Russ has accepted a pastorship there. The new job will give Russ a lighter workload, allowing him to take a second job to help with the costs of Perry’s legal team and damages.

After getting sober for a time, Perry, who has been diagnosed with a serious mental health condition—though the narrator does not specify which one—has relapsed and gone for a second stint at rehab. Russ and Marion have not been able to repay Becky yet, or to reimburse Clem for the $3,000 that Perry stole. Perry barely seems like himself after his psychological treatments, saying that they have altered his memory and given him painful side effects. Judson, at least, is doing well, happily participating in the school musical. Sometimes, Perry scrapes the food from his own plate, for which he has no appetite, onto Judson’s.

Meanwhile, Russ and Marion only see Becky and Tanner at church, and Becky only exchanges pleasantries with them. She and Tanner are married and have a baby, Gracie, but Becky does not let Russ or Marion hold her. Clem writes to Becky, gently encouraging her to be more gracious toward their parents, but she writes back with a blunt response, explaining that she has drawn strict boundaries with Russ and Marion for a reason. She has not forgiven them and feels they continue to enable Perry rather than truly help him with tough love. She ends the letter with an insistence that if Russ wants to be part of her life, he will have to respect this decision.

Clem’s heart aches to think that he and Becky have never repaired their relationship, as he still loves Becky more than anyone in the world. He changes his plan and returns to the U.S. to patch things up with her. When he arrives in New Prospect, he finds Becky at a park with Gracie, sitting among a crowd of her popular friends from high school and watching some boys from her graduating class playing baseball. They exchange an awkward side hug, a much less enthusiastic greeting than Clem had pictured.

On the walk back to Becky and Tanner’s house, he apologizes for telling her what to do in his letter. She explains that she is having Tanner’s family over for Easter dinner that Sunday but does not want to invite Russ and Marion; that would necessarily involve bringing Perry, who captures all the energy in the room with his post-treatment neediness.

When Becky asks Tanner to come to her Easter dinner, he realizes the invitation is a test: Will he choose her or their parents. He senses that she has become the most powerful person in the family, holding all the leverage—a grandchild, a husband, popularity, and even the moral high ground, as Russ and Marion had to take money that was rightfully hers. She can make whatever demands she pleases. He tells her he will think about it, although he already knows what he will do.

Part 2, Sections 23-24 Analysis

The position in which Becky finds herself at the end of the novel is a perfect demonstration of a theme that runs throughout the novel: Many choices are neither obviously morally right nor obviously morally wrong. They exist in murky, nuanced situations where multiple perspectives are valid. Becky’s feelings that her family has betrayed her are understandable. After she honored her parents’ wish that she split Aunt Shirley’s money with her brothers, her reward is to have that money stolen by Perry and then taken by Russ and Marion. While she may not have needed the money to live, she did need it to go to a four-year college, as she planned to do.

At the same time, she shows a lack of compassion and imagination toward Perry, who stole but did so while navigating addiction and mental health issues that he was not, as a 16-year-old, equipped to handle on his own. Divisions and bitterness within families or friend groups often come about this way, with no one person bearing complete responsibility.

Clem, meanwhile, has grown and matured since the beginning of the novel, and his growth offers some hope in the novel’s closing section, even though the Hildebrandts still have many divisions and problems. While Clem starts out certain that his moral choices are right and good while his father’s are hypocritical and wrong, he ends with humility and a willingness to respect other people’s choices, even when they differ from his. In the novel’s final sentences, Clem must choose between Becky and his parents for Easter dinner, and both parties will probably interpret his choice as a statement of loyalty to one side in their conflict. However, either choice comes with advantages and disadvantages; either choice will hurt someone. The reader may have a guess about which side Clem will choose, but either way he has learned that not every crossroads he will come to in life has a right path and a wrong path. Sometimes, all he can do is learn to live with whatever path he chooses.