56 pages • 1 hour read
Michael Crichton, James PattersonEruption
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 53-80Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 53 Summary
Jenny comes into Mac’s office. Mac vents about his fear and the difficulty of the task before him. They drink some whiskey, and Jenny tells him to get back to work. Briggs calls Mac and tells Mac to come immediately to a remote cabin on the island in a hazmat suit.
Chapter 54 Summary
The vegetation around the cabin is black and dead. Inside, there are three dead men. Briggs tells Mac they are the bodies of soldiers who did not properly decontaminate after cleaning up the spill in the Ice Tube. Briggs tells Mac that Sergeant Noa also did not decontaminate. They do not know how many soldiers skipped the decontamination protocol. Mac leaves and calls General Rivers.
Chapter 55 Summary
Rivers and Mac meet. Rivers tells Mac to keep quiet about Agent Black and the possible epidemic. Rivers is going to declare martial law and partially evacuate the island. Rivers wants Mac to figure out a way to protect the canisters from breakage.
Chapter 56 Summary
Outside the Civil Defense Building, Rivers gives a press conference explaining their three-part volcano containment plan. He also lets everyone know that he is placing Hilo under martial law.
Chapter 57 Summary
Mac and Rebecca go into a lava tube on the southeast part of Mauna Loa that Rick and Jenny found earlier that day. They are looking for places to put the explosives. Mac lets Rebecca know that the explosion could mean the end of life “not just [on] the island” (250).
Chapter 58 Summary
Rachel Sherrill, the former Hilo Botanical Gardens employee, is at her hotel watching the news about the press conference when two reporters from the New York Times knock on her door. They want to interview her.
Chapter 59 Summary
Mac and Jenny watch the construction crews arrive. Jenny is emotional, but before he can say anything, she walks away. The librarian arrives and tells Mac two reporters from the New York Times are there to see him. Over the phone, General Rivers advises Mac to lie to them.
Chapter 60 Summary
General Rivers and billionaire J.P. Brett meet at the army base. Brett tells Rivers he believes only they can save the island. He suggests cutting out Mac and the Cutlers. Rivers defends Mac’s abilities. Brett recommends bombing the east side of Mauna Loa and spraying it with seawater to slow the lava flow. He insinuates that Mac is being too cautious and hiding data from the team. Rivers says he will consider Brett’s proposal. However, Brett has already set plans in motion.
Chapter 61 Summary
Mac sits in his office and reviews the magma flow data. Jenny and Rick come in and tell Mac that Kenny, the programmer, and Pia, the seismologist, have left to join Brett’s team and took their data with them.
Chapter 62 Summary
Mac meets with the New York Times reporters, Imani Burgess and Sam Ito, at the HVO. He refuses to answer their questions in detail. They tell him they got a tip that there are “concerns” about some kind of emergency on Mauna Kea, the other volcano on the island. They ask him about an incident at the botanical gardens in 2016 involving “‘some kind of chemical spill’” and a recent incident with a soldier at a Hilo bar (266). They leave when he refuses to answer their questions. Then, Mac gets a call, and he leaves.
Chapter 63 Summary
Mac meets with J.P. Brett at the construction site on the mountain. However, before they can talk, there are a series of explosions caused by volcanic gases. Rocks hit the workers. One of Brett’s enormous drones almost falls on Mac.
Chapter 64 Summary
Jenny and Rebecca meet Mac when he leaves the hospital. He was hit by a rock in the head. They go to meet with the Cutlers and Brett at the hotel. Brett and Mac butt heads over Brett poaching members of Mac’s team and Brett’s use of drones in closed airspace. Brett tells Mac to get out of his way when Rivers arrives and tells Brett he is “‘the one who needs to get the hell out of Dr. MacGregor’s way’” (276).
Chapter 65 Summary
Reporter Sam Ito goes to the hospital and asks to see Sergeant Noa Mahoe. Two soldiers arrive and tell him to leave or face arrest. Meanwhile, reporter Imani Burgess meets with Rachel Sherrill to hear what she has to say about the US Army.
Chapter 66 Summary
Rivers tells Brett to listen to Mac’s plan. Mac says they are going to use sheets of tungsten, a metal with a high melting point, to protect the Military Reserve. Rivers says they will spend whatever is necessary to get the tungsten.
Chapter 67 Summary
Tako Takayama holds a town hall meeting at the Palace Theater in Hilo. The Indigenous locals are upset that white people, namely Rivers and Mac, told them to evacuate their homes. They are worried the construction will disturb sacred burial sites. Lono, who is at the meeting, leaves when he sees soldiers arrive. Soon after, Rivers and Mac arrive. They go onstage and say they need the locals’ help.
Chapter 68 Summary
Mac tells the islanders that he knows it is their land and he needs their help to protect it. The next morning, the townspeople show up to help with the construction efforts. Meanwhile, Brett, the Cutlers, two Italian volcanologists, and a videographer, Morgan, board a helicopter piloted by ex-Navy pilot Jake Rogers. They are trying to get close to the rift zone, the active part of the volcano.
Chapter 69 Summary
Above the rift zone, flying rocks and ash being thrown up by the lava eruptions pelt the helicopter. The pilot, Rogers, says they need to leave but Brett insists Morgan keep taking pictures while hanging out of the side of the helicopter. The helicopter begins to shake, and Rogers does a quick turn to get them to safety. Morgan falls out of the helicopter.
Chapter 70 Summary
Rebecca sees Morgan fall and runs to his assistance, followed by her brother, David. Meanwhile, the helicopter turns around for Morgan. Leah Cutler sees Morgan and starts screaming.
Chapter 71 Summary
Rebecca and David see Morgan’s body floating on a lava flow in a containment pond the Army built. Brett’s helicopter lands on a cliff overlooking the pond. Another helicopter lands nearby. Rivers and Mac get out.
Chapter 72 Summary
Rivers tells off Brett for getting Morgan killed. Brett offers to leave, but Rivers tells him to stay.
Chapter 73 Summary
Mac and Rivers go back to the base and supervise the preparations. They express respect for one another. They begin to drive toward the dike near Hilo when Rivers gets a call, and they go back to the base.
Chapter 74 Summary
Rivers, Mac’s team, and Brett’s team meet at the base. There has been a volcanic explosion in the Galápagos Islands that the army controlled using pinpointed ballistic missiles to vent the volcano. Mac suggests Jenny and Rick go there to learn more about how they did it. Brett offers they use his private jet.
Chapter 75 Summary
Mac sees Rick and Jenny off. Mac and Jenny kiss briefly before she boards the plane. After she leaves, he wonders if he should have said more about his feelings. Mac gets a voice message from Imani Burgess, the reporter. She wants to know if he has a comment for her story about a toxic waste dump on the island and the contaminated soldiers. Mac ignores the message and calls someone.
Chapter 76 Summary
Jenny and Rick observe and document the volcano activity on the Galápagos. They drive toward the summit and stand on a cliff to document the holes blown by the missiles. Suddenly, there is an earthquake, and the cliff falls into the ocean.
Chapter 77 Summary
Mac meets with Rachel Sherrill and the New York Times reporters. They are angry because Mac informed Rivers about the impending story and Rivers had the president intervene to pull the story. The reporters are leaving, but Rachel is staying in Hilo. After they leave, Mac gets a call informing him of Jenny and Rick’s deaths.
Chapter 78 Summary
Mac tells Rebecca he feels responsible for their deaths. Then, his ex-wife, Linda, calls to express her condolences. Mac talks to his sons and almost cries. After they hang up, Rivers calls.
Chapter 79 Summary
Mac meets Rivers near the Ice Tube where men are working to install titanium to protect the canisters. As they supervise, a soldier comes up and tells them shots were fired at a protest led by Indigenous people who discovered some of their sacred burial sites were disturbed. Rivers leaves to calm the crowd. Mac gets a call from Lono, who asks to meet.
Chapter 80 Summary
Mac and Lono meet at the beach. Mac tells Lono it is going to be a very bad explosion but there is no point in evacuating. Lono heard Rachel complaining to Tako about the cover-up. Lono admits that he was the one who told the locals about the disruption of their burial sites. Mac is understanding. The two of them go surfing together.
Chapters 53-80 Analysis
This section of Eruption contains multiple examples of the exploration of the theme of Displays of Courage and Recklessness. The actions of multiple characters throughout the narrative show the tension between these two characteristics. Comparing and contrasting these actions provides a glimpse into the similarities and differences between the two approaches to dangerous situations as portrayed in the text. In Chapter 69, Brett contracts with pilot Jake Rogers to go up in a helicopter to get footage of the volcanic eruption. This goes against the instruction to keep the air space clear. Once in the air, Rogers tells Brett it is too dangerous, and they must turn back. Brett contradicts him, stating, “These pictures are unbelievable” (69). This decision leads to the death of the videographer, Morgan. The text presents Brett’s actions as reckless rather than courageous; there was no reason for him to imperil the lives of others except for his childish desire to see a volcanic explosion up close.
Jenny and Rick’s similarly risky decision to observe the volcano in the Galápagos up close contrasts with Brett’s actions. Like Morgan, their decision to get close to a volcanic eruption ends in their deaths. However, they were doing it for a purpose greater than their interest and amusement; they were trying to get data to support the attempts to deflect the path of the lava. The text characterizes their actions as courageous. Indeed, Mac calls them “brave” when volunteering them for the mission. While superficially similar, Brett, Jenny, and Rick’s different motivations for making risky decisions are what distinguish those actions as either courageous or reckless.
One of the other tensions in this section that highlights the theme of The Challenge of Collective Action are differences between the Indigenous locals of Hawai‘i and the white people who have taken over leadership and declared martial law. The locals of the island have their own language and culture that is distinct from that of white Americans who colonized the land in the 19th century. Mac and Rivers are both white Americans who came from the mainland and sidelined local leadership, represented by the character Tako, head of the Civil Defense Force. Indeed, the narrative portrays Tako as something of an egotistical antagonist who contributes to disunity in the response team even though as the head of the local Civil Defense Force, he would realistically have a leading role in decision-making before an impending eruption.
This tension between the local Indigenous community and white mainlanders is best illustrated in the angry town meeting described in Chapter 67 where a local man objects, “I was born in this town and I will die in this town […] and no stinking haole is going to scare me away” (284). Haole is a sometimes-derogatory term in Hawaiian for those who are not native to the islands, particularly white people. Mac momentarily calms the crowd by appealing to them for help in defending the town of Hilo, but the tensions remain. Later, the text mentions that Indigenous people are violently protesting the disruption of their sacred burial grounds. This tension highlights another aspect of The Challenge of Collective Action in a Crisis. By not including the local, Indigenous community in their planning, Mac and Rivers assert their dominance and overlook native expertise and concerns. As a result, they must later appease them to get them on board with their plan.
The dynamic between the white leadership and the Indigenous people of Hawaii in Eruption contributes to a white savior narrative, a literary and film trope wherein a messianic white protagonist saves non-white, secondary characters. People critique this trope for the way that it portrays non-white characters as flat and with less agency than the white main character. Further, the white protagonist is the only one whose perspective is explored in depth and who experiences growth throughout the narrative.
Although the narrative shows the “white savior” in this instance, Mac, has some connections to the local Indigenous community, the text nevertheless portrays him as inherently more intelligent and capable than the locals, particularly because he relies on a scientific understanding. In contrast, the text portrays the Hawaiian people as having a superstitious understanding of volcano activity connected to their faith traditions around Pele, the volcano goddess. Mac is indeed the only character who experiences growth throughout the narrative while his Hawaiian mentee, Lono, has only a minor role and remains loyal to Mac throughout. In this way, Eruption’s thematic exploration of The Challenge of Collective Action in a Crisis in the face of Man Versus Nature relies on insensitive portrayals of Indigenous Hawaiians that reinforce stereotypes and perpetuate a diminished view of their culture, specifically one that is less intelligent or scientific. This depiction functions to bolster the scientific prowess and savior capabilities of the book’s leading protagonists and propel the plot forward.
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