50 pages • 1 hour read
Kristin HannahMagic Hour: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A 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 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This source material contains stereotypes and derogatory phrases about people with autism, as well as depictions of child abuse, mass shootings, suicide, and mental illness.
Dr. Julia Cates drives to the courthouse in Los Angeles. Members of the press ask her questions as she walks in, but her lawyer, Frank, shields her from them. A year earlier, Julia’s client, Amber Zuniga, walked into her church’s youth group meeting and shot several teenagers before dying by suicide. Frank asserts that despite Julia’s relationship with Amber, she was unaware of Amber’s intentions. However, the plaintiff claims that Julia should have placed Amber in a residential care unit. The judge rules that there was no evidence that Amber shared her plans with Julia beforehand, so she dismisses Julia’s case.
In the woods, a girl watches the rain from her cave. She knows there is no more food. She hears a twig snap and realizes that her captor is coming. She knows that there will be trouble for her if he sees that she freed herself.
In Rain Valley, Washington, Sheriff Ellie Barton sits with her colleagues, Cal and Peanut, in the police station. Peanut tells them that she saw Ellie’s sister, Julia, on the news the other day. Ellie tells them that the judge dismissed Julia’s lawsuit. Suddenly, a woman from town rushes into the police station and tells them to come with her quickly.
Chapter 2 Summary
Ellie gets out of her car at the town square. One of her police officers explains that they saw a girl climb a tree. Ellie looks up at the tree and sees a girl in one of the high branches. She looks about six years old and is extremely thin and dirty, and she holds a wolf pup to her chest. Ellie tells the girl that she will not hurt her, but she needs to come down from the branch. The girl stares at Ellie without speaking. Ellie tells Cal and Peanut to clear the area because a crowd has started to form, and she knows that by the end of the day, the town gossip will be out of control.
Later, Ellie offers the girl food from the diner, but the girl does not move. Ellie takes a bite of one of the chicken tenders and hears the girl moving above her. She looks up and sees the girl staring at the food. Ellie tells her to come down, but she does not move until Ellie uses one-word commands: “Down. Here. Chicken. Pie. Dinner. Food” (28). At this phrasing, the girl drops down and inches near the food. Without warning, she attacks the food and eats voraciously. Ellie reaches behind her for a net and throws it over the girl, who flails around and tries to escape. One of the officers shoots the wolf with a tranquilizing dart, and Ellie sedates the girl with a shot.
A crowd gathers in front of the local hospital. The gossip in town is that the little girl has magical powers. In the hospital, the girl lays unconscious on a bed, restrained. Ellie stands by the bed as Dr. Max Cerasin examines the girl. Max has a reputation for dating women in town, including Ellie, but he never settled down with anyone. He tells Ellie that the girl is dehydrated and malnourished and shows her ligature marks on the girl’s ankle. Ellie realizes that the girl was tied up and that she is a victim of kidnapping or domestic abuse. Max moves her into the daycare room so he can observe her.
Chapter 3 Summary
After the trial, Julia goes back to her office. Julia’s receptionist, Gwen, tells her that all her appointments canceled and shows her the cover of the L.A. Times, which has the headline “Dead Wrong” next to a picture of Julia’s face. In the article, the Zunigas blame Julia for what happened to Amber. Julia decides to take a vacation, and Gwen promises that before long, everyone will forget about the case. Julia wishes she could call Philip, whom she thought loved her but is now married to another woman. Instead, she calls her therapist, Dr. Collins, who tells her that she should give interviews telling her side of the story. However, Julia thinks people will believe what they want to believe.
The next morning, Ellie and Peanut meet Max at the daycare room. Max tells them that when she woke up, the girl threw items around the room. When a nurse tried to sedate her, she bit her. Max thinks the girl is six years old, and he tells Ellie that her body has heavy scarring. He examined her vocal cords and while there is nothing physically wrong with them, he suspects that trauma has affected her so greatly that she does not know how to speak.
Ellie takes food to the girl, who growls at her from under the bed. After Ellie leaves, the girl dashes out and devours the food before running under the bed to hide again. Max tells Ellie that they need to call a psychiatrist to help her. Ellie calls her sister, saying she’ll explain the details when she arrives. Julia has nothing else to do, so she agrees to get on the next flight.
Chapter 4 Summary
Julia dreads returning to Rain Valley after her career failure. In the car, Ellie asks about Philip, and Julia tells her that they broke up. They pull up to their childhood home, where Ellie still lives. Julia feels overwhelmed by the memories of the house, especially since her mother died. She thinks about the funeral and how everyone comforted her father, which Julia resented because he crushed her mother’s spirit. Julia wishes that she could talk to Ellie about this, but she knows that Ellie was oblivious to their father’s selfishness.
After Julia settles in, Ellie tells her about the girl. Julia knows the implication of the girl’s trauma from Ellie’s description of the scarring on her back and the ligature marks. Julia remarks that she may not be the best person to help because of her recent press, but Ellie insists that she wants someone that she can trust.
Ellie drives them to the hospital and introduces Julia to Max. Julia realizes that he is the type of man who charms women and never commits to them. He takes her to the daycare room, and they watch until the girl crawls from under the bed to eat the food on the table. Julia tells Ellie to bring her chocolate, dolls, and stuffed animals. Max gives Julia the girl’s chart before he leaves.
Chapter 5 Summary
As Ellie leaves the hospital, the crowd outside surrounds her and asks questions. One of the local reporters, Mort Elzik, asks if Julia is the psychiatrist working with the girl, but Ellie does not answer. Peanut tells Ellie that the Center for Lost and Missing Children has sent a list of 10,000 potential matches.
The girl lies under the bed, feeling scared, and Julia talks to her, hoping to calm her down. She asks an orderly to move the bed out of the room but to leave the mattress laying on the ground. When the orderly leaves, the girl presses herself against the wall as if she can hide herself from Julia.
The next day, Julia asks if she has a father and if she can get him for her. Suddenly, the girl attacks her. Max pulls her off and sedates her. Julia wants to watch the tapes back to see what she said that set the girl off. Max takes her to his office to tend to the scratches on her face before driving her to the police station to talk to Ellie.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
In this section, Hannah introduces the setting of Rain Valley, Washington. The novel begins in Los Angeles, California, and Hannah uses this urban setting to build a contrast with the small-town nature of Rain Valley. Although Julia left Rain Valley because she dislikes the gossip, she finds herself returning to Rain Valley to escape the media attention of her lawsuit. In turn, Rain Valley’s small-town characterization contrasts with the wild nature of the forest in which Alice grows up. To Alice, Rain Valley is overwhelming as a social context, which is why she hides in the first tree that she sees. Hannah uses the setting of Rain Valley to criticize the negative aspect of gossip in healing but also to highlight the power of community. In isolation, Alice and the other characters are trapped in their trauma; with help from loved ones and their community, they begin to heal.
Hannah introduces The Challenges of Professional Life and Public Perception through Julia’s case. Even though the judge absolves Julia of guilt regarding Amber’s violent plan, Julia still feels responsible for what happened in Silverwood. On top of Julia’s personal feelings, the media and the victim’s family make it clear that they do not agree with the judge’s ruling. This public perception ruins Julia’s career and causes her to fall into a state of depression. Although Julia understands the anger and pain of the Zunigas and the other parents, she feels bitter because no one wants to understand her side of the story; she tells her therapist that people will “believe what they want to, anyway” (37). Julia’s depression about people not believing her almost consumes her because she wants someone to absolve her of the guilt that she feels. Once her career falls apart, she realizes that she has placed too much weight on her professional status because she has no one to fall back on when it comes crashing down.
This section also introduces the theme of Trauma and Recovery through Alice’s behavioral patterns. When Alice arrives in Rain Valley, gossip about her supernatural abilities spreads quickly because it is easier to imagine a girl with superpowers than to face the reality of what Alice went through. Even though Max and Ellie do not know if Alice will ever speak, Julia sees past Alice’s behavioral problems to the scared child underneath. With an important task in front of her, Julia can put aside her feelings to help Alice, who is even more in need. However, Alice’s long period of isolation makes it difficult for Julia to break through her barrier. Alice shows her propensity for violence when she attacks Julia after hearing the word “him,” foreshadowing later revelations about what happened to her and her mother. Alice’s fear of this word reveals her trauma around her abductor, yet she does not know how to verbalize her fear and pain. Despite Max’s shock over Alice’s violence, Julia knows that Alice only attacked her out of survival instinct rather than malice. She knows that the only way that she will get Alice to heal is by showing her that she is safe and releasing her from the fear that has been present throughout her whole life. In turn, she learns how to deal with her own feelings of isolation, the roots of which are hinted at in these chapters when Julia reflects on her father and childhood.
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By Kristin Hannah
