Jayber Crow

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-3

Part 1, Chapters 4-6

Part 1, Chapters 7-9

Part 2, Chapters 10-12

Part 2, Chapters 13-15

Part 2, Chapters 16-18

Part 2, Chapters 19-22

Part 3, Chapters 23-25

Part 3, Chapters 26-28

Part 3, Chapters 29-32

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Part 2, Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “A Little Worter Dranking Party”

In May of 1937, Jayber is settling into life in Port William. Burley invites him to a gathering of men from town at the Grandstand. They call it a “water drinking party,” which is code for moonshine drinking party. The Grandstand is just a high spot in the woods where the men sit around the fire drinking, playing cards, frying fish, and swapping stories. They listen to dogs fox hunting in the woods nearby. In attendance are Rufus Brightleaf, Wisely Jones, Big Ellis, Roy Overhold, River Bill Thacker, Grover Gibbs, Martin Rowanberry, Webster Page, Uncle Isham Quail, Julep Smallwood, and Burley. The men welcome Jayber by offering him fried fish, cornbread, and Burley’s moonshine.

Everyone drinks from the same bottle, and the gulps are counted by the word “good” as Burley hears it coming from the jug. Jayber enjoys listening to the men share their stories, some of which have becomes legends. The men get more intoxicated as the night goes on and the stories get more convoluted. Most fall asleep sitting around the fire. Burley disappears into the night. Jayber is startled awake the next morning by Roy Overhold’s wife Cecelia. She smashes the bottles and rages at the drunken party. Jayber thinks she is a beautiful woman, but at that moment she is infuriated, “walking like the Divine Wrath itself” (133). Some of the men, including Roy, have climbed a tree to hide. Jayber narrates that Roy and Cecelia love each other but often have marital trouble. Cecelia insults Jayber by calling him “bald-headed” and throws a rock at him, which chips his tooth. The party that night becomes legendary. Bill Thacker fell over a bridge trying to walk home but landed safely in the mud, and Julep Smallwood walked straight to church.

Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary: “An Invisible Web”

Jonah begins to learn about the culture in Port William. The women mostly keep to themselves. There are clear racial divides due to the era. Joe Banion is the only Black man in town and is sometimes called a racial slur behind his back. Jonah struggles to make ends meet the first month he is in business but soon finds a steady clientele. He finds his bachelor status to be unique. “A bachelor was, by nature, under suspicion” (138). People find it odd for a man his age not to be married, but he goes on about his business anyway. Jonah is given the nickname “Jayber,” and everyone in town except Cecelia Overhold treats him quite well. Jayber feels at home in Port William and at home in himself. “I was not a preacher or a teacher or a student or a traveler. I was Port William’s bachelor barber” (139). Jayber enjoys living where he works, and Burley helps him till the small plot behind his shop for a garden. Gardening becomes a hobby for Jayber, one that he says he still enjoys today. Burley becomes Jayber’s close friend despite the age difference between them. Burley is not a reader but is glad to know Jayber is and admires his collection of books. Jayber thinks about all the different types of people he has served in his barbershop.

Some have died in war, such as Tom Coulter, Virgil Feltner, and Jimmy Chatham. Jayber’s favorite customers are the older men in the town like Old Man Profet and Uncle Stanley Gibbs. He feels blessed to touch their heads and learn from their wisdom. There is a tenderness to his care for them as they approach the end of their life. Jayber can read the story of their life in the scars on their hands. Some of Jayber’s favorite memories are when the men of the town gather to play music in his shop. Now that he is settled, Jayber begins to deal with all that he endured as a child. He keeps Sam Hank’s five-dollar bill in a safe place. He takes a walk to a high place where he can view the entire town, the valley, and the river, and it brings back the sweet memories of childhood. Jayber also visits the graves of his family members and is comforted and at peace.

Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary: “The Gay Bird’s Heel”

Jayber admits to not always making the right decisions in life and compares his journey to that of Dante or the narrator of Pilgrim’s Progress, but his path has not been so straightforward. “I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led” (149). Jayber returns to the subject of Mattie Keith Chatham, whom he mentioned earlier. Mattie is an attractive, spirited girl and is always with her friends Thelma and Althie. Jayber is attracted to Mattie, but she is in love with a handsome basketball star named Troy Chatham. Jayber sees Troy as a self-absorbed braggart. Mattie and Althie bring Althie’s brother to the barbershop for a haircut. Mattie accidentally leaves her books behind. Jayber reads love messages in the history book from Troy to Mattie. Mattie’s parents are Athey and Della Keith. They live on a lovely farm surrounded by forest. Mattie is their only child. Athey is a barbershop regular, who does not talk much, but Jayber can tell he does not approve of Mattie’s relationship with Troy. “I knew he had subtracted Troy Chatham’s talent as a basketball player from Troy Chatham, and had found not enough left over” (153). One day Mattie walks past as Troy is playing basketball with his friends. He makes a spectacular dunk just to impress her. Jayber watches from afar and hates Troy Chatham.

Part 2, Chapters 10-12 Analysis

The “Worter Dranking Party” serves as an initiation ceremony for Jayber into the male community of Port William. The onomatopoeia of the jug’s glugs into “good- goods” baptizes this night, not only as one that will go down in the town’s history but as one that solidifies Jayber as a part of the whole. The humorous scene ends with Roy Overhold treed by his wife Cecelia just like the hunted foxes the night before. The author injects humor and whimsy into the narrative with the antics of the drunken partygoers but also conveys Jayber’s joy to be welcomed into the brotherhood of Port William. Until this point in the narrative, Jayber has never spoken ill of another character, but his interaction with Cecelia’s cruelty to him sits in stark contrast to the conviviality of the previous night. Cecelia’s indignation is characteristic of women during this era who espoused the temperance movement and did not approve of their partners drinking alcohol and gambling on the eve of the sabbath. Cecelia’s scorn and disapproval make Jayber feel small and unwanted.

As his business grows and his garden flourishes, Jayber’s relationship with the town also strengthens. The barbershop becomes a hub for connection through town gossip, storytelling, and music, and Jayber sits at its center soaking it all into his being. Jayber values the older men in the town seeing them as treasured vaults of wisdom and experience. His heart is so full of his new life that the old wounds are forced open and past traumas demand attention. Jayber must make peace with his past before he can become fully rooted in his new present. His walk through the town and out into the valley of his childhood is a symbolic pilgrimage into the past. As he revisits the places that shaped him, the memories of those he has lost visit him like ghosts. The author emphasizes the power of memory to heal the wounds of suffering and preserve the legacy of those who have been lost. The author alludes to Dante’s Inferno and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress in Jayber’s dissemination of his unusual path through life. Both Dante and Bunyan use the journey as a symbol of spiritual progress through trials, testing, and suffering. Jayber’s journey likewise has been instructive, though not in the same way.

Though the town has accepted Jayber as a bachelor with no hope of marriage, he has secretly developed an attachment to one person in particular; he is deeply in love with Mattie Keith. The author adds a new layer of depth to Jayber’s character as he develops a strong attachment to Mattie and adds tension to the narrative arc with the introduction of Troy Chatham. Other than his brief, tense exchange with Cecelia, Jayber has not spoken ill of another person in his life. He even resisted speaking ill of the orphanage director. However, Troy Chatham brings out a negative side of Jayber’s character. In Troy, he sees everything he is not—handsome, athletic, and outgoing. Jayber despises his pompous bravado and sees him as a man who lacks substance. Until now, Jayber has mostly battled unseen forces of fate, such as illness and natural disasters, but the introduction of Troy brings him into direct conflict with a human force and threatens to upset the respectable, pleasant life Jayber has built in Port William.