53 pages • 1 hour read
Kent HarufOur Souls At Night
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A 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 27-34Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 27 Summary
Louis drives Addie, Jamie, and Bonny to a national forest in the mountains where they camp for a couple of nights. They sleep in a tent together and cook meals over the fire. Louis and Jamie cut switches to use for roasting marshmallows. During the day, they go hiking and visit the Continental Divide. Louis instructs Jamie on how to follow the river to go exploring and be able to find his way back. Jamie takes Bonny along the river and reports that they didn’t see any bears. He says he would like to see a bear, ideally from the safety of the truck. The second night, Louis takes Jamie into the woods to pee, explaining that they don’t have to go all the way to the toilets. When they drive home the next day, they retire in two separate bedrooms.
Chapter 28 Summary
Gene comes to visit his mother and son. He notes that Jamie calls Louis by his first name and that the dog is staying with him. Louis brings the dog over later and meets Gene, who questions him about spending the nights with Addie when Jamie is in the house. Gene thinks the situation could be harmful to Jamie, and he is suspicious of Louis’s caring for the boy. After Louis leaves, Gene tells Addie that he thinks her actions and decisions are hurting Jamie and that Louis is probably just after her money. She denies this and tries to assure Gene that she’ll still help him financially as much as she can. Gene sleeps in the room with Jamie, but since he doesn’t want the dog there, Bonny stays at Louis’s house. On the second night, Jamie has a bad dream and wakes crying. The next morning, Gene leaves and tells Addie that his estranged wife Beverly is coming back in a couple of weeks, and they’re going to try again to make their marriage work. He says he will come back then to pick up Jamie. Louis suggests that Bonny go home with Jamie to comfort him, but Addie isn’t sure Gene and Beverly will take the dog.
Chapter 29 Summary
Louis tells Addie about the last year of Diane’s life as she wasted away from cancer after going through chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Initially, she was afraid of death, but eventually she just tired of life and suffering. Though friends, such as Addie, brought over food and flowers, Diane didn’t allow anyone other than Louis and Holly to see her in her bedroom after she became so emaciated. Louis asserts that he is not afraid of death because he believes that death is just a return to one’s spirit form. He regrets that Diane never got what she wanted out of life or from him. Addie replies that most people rarely ever get what they want from life, which is why they should savor their few moments of happiness and connection. They agree that their arrangement is exactly what they want at the moment, but that if one of them were to tire of it, they should just say so and move on.
Chapter 30 Summary
Louis and Addie take Jamie to the Holt County Fair and rodeo, which starts with a parade. It’s raining at the time of the parade, so they cut holes in trash bags to use as rain ponchos. Addie and Jamie ride the Ferris wheel, and she points out her house to him when they are at the top. They play some games and get cotton candy for Jamie. When they’re done with the fair, they retrieve the dog from Louis’s house and have dinner on Addie’s porch.
Chapter 31 Summary
Louis mows his yard and Addie’s yard, and Jamie helps him dump the clippings. They go to check on the mice but notice they have left. In the afternoon, Louis and Jamie play catch, and then Addie and Jamie retire to her bedroom to rest. Jamie calls his mother who tells him she’ll be coming home in a couple of weeks. He wants to know where she’ll be living. She tells him she’ll be living at the house with him because she wants to be with him. He clarifies that she also wants to be with his dad.
Chapter 32 Summary
Addie, Jamie, and Louis have dinner at the Wagon Wheel restaurant outside of town. There, they meet Stanley Thompkins, a wheat farmer Louis knows. He tells Addie and Louis that their companionship gives him hope that maybe he’ll find somebody, too. After dinner, the trio drives out to Thompkins’s place to see the stubble of his harvested wheat fields.
Chapter 33 Summary
Addie tells Louis about Carl’s death. They had been in church on an August Sunday. Carl always wore a suit, even when it was hot, because he thought it was how a businessperson should dress. Addie felt him slumping against her. People helped her to lay him out on the pew, and Addie tried to give him CPR, but he was already dead. She asked that he not be taken to the hospital but that they wait for the coroner to arrive and then take him to the funeral home. Gene, home from college, was with her, but he refused to touch his father’s body. They had Carl cremated. Addie reports that she felt as though she were in a trance at that time. Gene stayed with her for a week, but he refused to talk about the death. Addie thinks he has a lot of unresolved anger and resentment toward his father, and now he is acting cold and closed toward Jamie, the same way Carl acted with him. Louis points out that people cannot always fix things. Addie agrees, acknowledging that as much as one may want to fix other people, it doesn’t work.
Chapter 34 Summary
Over Sunday morning coffee, Addie and Louis see an ad in the Post for an upcoming performance at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. It’s the third installment of performances based on a trilogy of books about Holt County. Louis and Addie discuss the characters and plots of the novel; the stories are based on people like them in a town like Holt. Addie posits that the author could write a book about them, that they are no more unlikely than some of the characters in the second novel. Louis comments that the situation between them came as a surprise and he’s still wondering how Addie managed to be so brave as to ask him. She responds that, other than being embarrassed if he turned her down, she wouldn’t have been any worse off than she was before. Louis says that he doesn’t need to have an exciting life at this point; he just wants a simple life spending time with Addie. When he points out that people think they are physically intimate but they are not, Addie asks if he’d like to be. He answers that it’s her choice.
Chapters 27-34 Analysis
The events in this chapter are a contrast from The Pain of Loneliness that Louis and Addie experienced before Addie’s proposition at the novel’s opening. Previously, their lives were quiet and uneventful, with only day-to-day chores like cleaning and gardening to fill the time; however, now, Addie, Louis, and Jamie are a happy, busy trio—a family unit—with eventful days, and Addie and Louis develop a deepening bond through this and through their increasingly close conversations at night. Though they aren’t yet physically intimate, they are emotionally intimate, and they are both enjoying this companionship. With Louis, they go on a two-day camping trip, spend time at the county fair, and visit a restaurant. Jamie seems happier and more confident than he was when he arrived. The easy-going pleasure they all have in each other’s company exemplifies Addie’s perspective that she and Louis have a special connection. When Louis tells her the story of Diane’s death, he says he feels that he failed Diane and that he couldn’t give her what she wanted. Addie thinks he’s being too hard on himself because most people don’t get what they want out of life. She says relationships are “always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out of old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings. Except I still say that this isn’t true of you and me” (130-31). Addie believes that the Late-Life Love they have found with each other is something special. Louis agrees that his relationship with Addie is exceptional and that it feels more honest and deeper than his relationship with Diane. Still, they wonder how long it will last, knowing that circumstances and feelings can change. However, for this part of their lives, during this summer, they just want to enjoy what they have.
The first threat to their happiness comes during Gene’s first visit, when the threat of Rumors and Reputations reenters their summer idyll. Addie worries that Gene is over-protective and controlling, and this is immediately obvious when Jamie plans to go play outside with Bonny and Gene orders Jamie to “Stay out of the street” (124). This also shows that Gene still carries scars from his sister’s death on that same street; he tries to control situations in the present in order to avoid the helplessness he felt as a young boy when he chased his sister onto the street and she got struck by a car. His desire to control all situations extends even to his mother’s relationship with Louis. He notes that Jamie calls Louis by his first name, suggesting a closeness or casualness he doesn’t like, and he is suspicious of Louis’s relationship with Jamie, as well. Gene remembers Louis’s extra-marital affair from 40 years ago, and this is why he doubts Louis’s character. This shows how smalltown rumors have real effects on people’s lives and relationships. Gene thinks that Louis’s sleeping over at night is harmful to the boy, though he doesn’t explain why he thinks it would be. Initially, Addie pushes back, saying that most of the harm to Jamie came from Gene and Beverly, but Gene brushes that aside with vague accusations and warnings that Louis wants her money. Gene is projecting his own financial insecurities onto Louis; Gene is the one who is dependent on his mother’s financial support. Earlier, Addie told Louis that Gene hates asking for help. This scene shows that he blinds himself to his own foibles because it is too uncomfortable for him to acknowledge that his business is failing and he can’t support his family on his own. Gene’s baggage from his sister’s death and his personal troubles compound to make him suspicious of his mother’s relationship with Louis and determined to control her actions. Gene’s reaction also shows that most people are likely to be critical and suspicious of romantic relationships between older adults, believing that companionship and intimacy should be reserved for the young. Additionally, older adults face the complication of dealing with this judgment from their children. While Addie is unbothered by the townspeople’s snide comments about her relationship with Louis, she finds it harder to ignore Gene. These unpleasant scenes with Gene foreshadow complications on the horizon for Louis’s and Addie’s relationship.
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By Kent Haruf
