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.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Larry Ott returns home to his parents’ old house in rural Mississippi to tend to his land and animals. Larry attaches a specially designed chicken coop to his tractor, intending to take the chickens out into the field to graze, but decides against it because of the weather. Going through his mundane morning routine of getting ready and collecting the mail, Larry finds a book from his book club that he looks forward to opening at the garage where he works. Larry’s mother calls from the nursing home and asks him to bring lunch, so he goes home to pick up a photo album to help her with her memory.
In a hurry, Larry drives faster than normal and muses that this probably isn’t such a good idea, since the police always keep a close eye on him; the day before, chief investigator Roy French showed up with a search warrant because of the missing girl in town, Tina Rutherford. Larry is a prime suspect in her disappearance. Inside the kitchen, Larry encounters someone wearing an old monster mask from Larry’s childhood that he’s had hidden in his closet. The masked man tells Larry, “Ever body knows what you did” (6), and he shoots Larry in the chest. Larry passes out and wakes up on the floor, covered in blood. He thinks of his parents, and of Cindy Walker “standing in the woods” (7). The masked man instructs Larry to die.
Chapter 2 Summary
Constable Silas Jones stops at the Rutherford property when he sees vultures circling the woods. Silas treks through the swamp and finds a dead body, but not Tina Rutherford as he suspected—instead, a childhood friend of his, nicknamed M&M, a known local drug dealer. Silas gets a surprise when Chief French sneaks up on him at the crime scene. Soon the EMTs arrive, including Silas’s girlfriend, Angie. A few hours later, Silas returns to his office in Chabot Town Hall, which he shares with the part-time mayor and the town clerk, Voncille. French stops by and tells Silas, “Paid me a visit to Norman Bates other day” (20), referring to Larry Ott. French thinks Larry might be connected to Tina Rutherford since Larry went on a date with Cindy Walker years before and she was never heard from again. Silas confesses they went to school together and thinks it’s strange when French says Larry’s garage is closed, since Larry always keeps it open, even though he almost never has customers. Silas remembers that Larry called him when he returned to Mississippi, trying to reconnect, but Silas avoided getting back in touch.
After driving by Larry’s shop and seeing his truck isn’t there, Silas calls Angie and asks her to make a stop at Larry’s place to check on him. Silas gets called out to “white trash avenue,” his nickname for a trailer park community, where someone has put a rattlesnake in a mailbox. Silas kills the snake and interviews the three women who live in the trailer, who confess any one of their exes could have put it there. Silas returns to town to direct traffic coming out of the mill at the end of the workday when he gets a phone call from Angie. When he asks about Larry Ott’s place, she simply tells him, “Oh my God” (32).
Chapter 3 Summary
On a cold day in March of 1979, Larry’s father, Carl, drives him to school and stops to pick up Silas and his mother, Alice. Alice and Carl seem to know each other and keep up tense conversation as they introduce the two boys. Larry figures out that Alice and Silas must live in an old cabin at the edge of their property. When Larry’s mother, Ina, picks him up from school, he tells her about Alice and Silas and can see it upsets her. The car rides to school continue for some time until Ina insists on taking Larry herself. Ina gives Alice and Silas some old coats from their closet and drives away.
Larry and Carl never give Alice and Silas rides after that, and Larry worries he has betrayed his father’s trust. Their relationship is already strained, since Larry prefers reading over sports and looks more like his mother’s side of the family. In particular, Larry resembles one uncle, Colin, whom Carl dislikes because he’s a vegetarian and wears his seatbelt, two things that make people soft in Carl’s eyes. Larry likes to help Carl out around his automotive shop, where a different side to Carl comes out as he tells stories to his friends. Larry remembers an incident on the playground in which two white boys, Ken and David, egg him on to call a black girl named Jackie “monkey lips.” A black teacher reprimands Larry, and in class, when the teacher goes outside to smoke, several black students throw books at Larry. A black girl named Carolyn roughs him up as Ken, David, and other white students watch on, laughing.
One day at home, Larry takes out his .22 rifle into the woods. Instead of going to spy on the neighbor girl, Cindy, like he normally might, Larry goes to the cabin where Silas and Alice live. Silas is there alone, and Larry teaches him how to shoot the rifle. Larry lets Silas keep it, along with some bullets, but tells Silas he’ll have to come back and get it later. On his way home, Larry takes off his gloves and leaves them behind for Silas, since he noticed during their rides to school that Silas doesn’t have any.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Franklin writes his novel in third-person limited perspective, following two alternating point-of-view characters, Larry and Silas. These alternating viewpoints establish from the very beginning that the fates of Silas and Larry are intertwined, and that both will provide key information in solving the two crimes mentioned in the first chapter: the recent disappearance of Tina Rutherford and the decades-old disappearance of Cindy Walker. Both men have reason to be invested in the disappearances of Cindy and Tiny. Larry was the last known person to have seen Cindy before she disappeared and has long been suspected of her murder; as a result, when Tina goes missing, Larry immediately becomes a suspect. As the acting Constable of Chabot, Silas has a responsibility to try to find Tina, and he knew both Larry and Cindy in their school days.
Further complicating the relationship between the two men is the evident strain hinted at by Silas: “He’d sat on the bed for half an hour [...] remembering him and Larry when they were boys, what Silas had done, how he’d beaten Larry when Larry said what he’d said” (22). Though the full extent of their relationship has not yet been divulged, Franklin hints that there is yet much uncovered between the two men. It will be revealed piece by piece during their alternating viewpoints as the story unfolds.
On the surface, Silas and Larry may not seem to have much in common. Larry comes from a wealthier white family, while Silas and his mother are poor. In present day, Silas is a constable, while Larry is believed to be a murderer. However, through Larry’s memories in Chapter 3, it becomes clear that their families are intricately connected; though Larry’s memories are clouded by his youthful observations, the reader may infer that Alice and Carl have been romantically involved and that Ina has pieced this together. Larry’s brief connection with Silas over shooting the .22 rifle hints at a relationship that will continue to grow and develop, and Larry’s act of leaving behind his gloves for Silas establishes a relationship of Larry as giver and Silas as receiver that will impact the nature of their friendship as they move forward.
