48 pages • 1 hour read
Ali HazelwoodCheck & Mate
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Openings”
Prologue Summary
Mallory, a 16-year-old high school student, watches an interview of Nolan Sawyer on her phone while she should be completing her lab during chemistry class. Sawyer is a Grandmaster in professional chess, and the interviewer notes that Sawyer is considered a Gen Z sex symbol, something that Sawyer rejects. The interview reminds Mallory of her old love for chess and how she can no longer remember what a chess pieces feels like in her hand. When Mallory’s teacher comes around, she hides the phone and completes the lab. Her internal monologue notes that she didn’t think about Sawyer again two years, when they play one another at chess for the first time and she beats him.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
Easton, Mallory’s best friend, tries to convince Mallory to return to chess for a charity tournament because other players of chess club had to pull out. She frames it as an opportunity for them to spend time together before Easton goes away to college. After thinking about it at work, Mallory agrees, despite giving up chess several years ago.
Mallory, a recent high school graduate, has put off college, putting aside her scholarship offers to stay home and care for her younger sisters, Sabrina and Darcy, and her mother, Mrs. Greenleaf, who has severe rheumatoid arthritis. Mallory works as a car mechanic to help her mother pay the bills and support the family, since her symptoms often prevent her from working. Mallory’s parents divorced several years prior, and her father died not long after. Mrs. Greenleaf confronts Mallory about college and tries to convince her once more to go, but Mallory puts her off by pretending she does not want to attend college. Mallory tells her mother to rest and leaves to meet Easton, not admitting to her mother that she will be playing chess again.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary
Easton instructs Mallory and the other two members of the club, Zach and Josh, on the rules of the charity tournament before they enter the space. Once they do, Mallory stops for a moment. The sight of the chess boards and tables bombards her with sensory memories from her time as a club member and with her father. Disregarding the memories, she hears Zach and Josh informing them that they’ve seen several high-profile chess players at the event. At her own table, she meets her first opponent: Nolan Sawyer, the player whose interview she watched two years ago and who is now seen as the best professional chess player.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary
Mallory and Nolan introduce themselves, but Nolan pays no further attention to her. Stunned at being paired with the top chess player, Mallory stumbles for the first few moves. She forgets to start Nolan’s clock and feels flustered, but her old instincts soon kick in. She returns to her strategic thinking and defeats Nolan to everyone’s shock, including her own. She recalls old games of his she saw where he was a sore loser and threw chess pieces and tables, so she remains on high alert for any sign of toxic masculinity. Nolan, however, stares at her calmly. Mallory panics at his silent observation, and when he starts to speak, she flees, leaving the tournament behind.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
Darcy wakes Mallory, who had a long night of using TV to distract herself from the tournament and compartmentalize what happened. Mallory has a visitor named Defne, who runs a Brooklyn chess club called Zugzwang. She put together the charity tournament and saw that Mallory soundly beat Nolan Sawyer, despite his expertise and her reservations about chess. Defne wants Mallory to accept her club’s fellowship, which pays a young chess player to join the club for a year and be mentored to become a professional. Mallory refuses, becoming reactive when Defne mentions Mallory’s father. Defne tells her to think about it and promises to email the contract.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
Mallory works at the garage as she feels the weight of pressing family bills and attention from friends about the chess match. Easton is in the garage with her, trying to convince Mallory to take the fellowship from Defne. Mallory steps away when she hears a disagreement in the front office. An unnecessary and expensive engine flush was performed on the car of a customer who cannot afford it, and the customer now refuses to pay for anything but the cheaper service she requested. When Mallory points out that the engine flush wasn’t required, her boss fires her. Mallory cannot sue for wrongful termination because she was working illegally, having lacked the professional qualifications to be a mechanic. This also leaves her unable to find a new job. With only minimum wage jobs available, she uneasily considers taking the chess fellowship to pay her family’s bills. She still feels anger with her father, and that emotion is entangled with her feelings for chess. On the day she says goodbye to Easton, whom she is certain will leave abandon their friendship while at college, Mallory emails Defne asking if the fellowship is still available. She plans to take Easton’s advice, using it for the money while avoiding emotional investment. She plans to get her mechanic certifications during her free time.
Prologue-Part 1 Analysis
Ali Hazelwood models the structure of Check & Mate after the typical structure of a chess game: Openings, Middle Game, and Endgame. Like when a player makes a first move of a game, Mallory’s unintended defeat of Nolan as an unknown in professional chess provides the opening “move” of the novel, to which Nolan responds by trying to find her afterward and (unknown to Mallory at this point) providing the financial impetus for the fellowship Defne offers Mallory.
Hazelwood opens the novel with a line that both catches the reader’s attention with its blunt honesty and foreshadows the revelation of Nolan’s sexual inexperience. The first line of the novel is spoken by an interviewer to Nolan: “’I am reliably informed that you’re a Gen Z sex symbol’” (12). The line even surprises Mallory within the narrative, causing her to double check that no one else in the classroom heard it through her headphones. It engages the reader, but it also represents the disparity between how Nolan is perceived and his actual personal life, since he is a virgin when he meets Mallory.
Part 1 plays the role of setup, providing the necessary pieces for the events of the rest of the novel to occur, including introducing readers to Mallory’s family situation and having her return to the world of chess. She thinks the tournament is a one-off occasion, but it becomes an opportunity for her despite her aversion to Defne’s fellowship offer. Part 1 reveals Mallory’s role as family caretaker and breadwinner since her mother’s diagnosis with severe rheumatoid arthritis and Mallory’s fixation on making sure her sisters do not have to deal with adult worries in their childhood. This section also reveals both the depth of Mallory’s friendship with Easton and Mallory’s near-obsessive worries that Easton will grow emotionally distant from her while she goes to college and Mallory stays at home to care for her family. The novel hints at Mallory’s trauma around chess and her father, but it also reveals that Mallory avoids discussion of both at all costs, leaving a sense of mystery for the reader around what happened with Mallory’s father.
Part 1 reveals that Mallory struggles to deal with Vulnerability, Pain, and Love. She avoids thinking about her father much, repressing the pain of what happened between them. Despite hiding her feelings, Mallory cannot completely avoid the effects of the past on her mental state; her internal monologue reveals that she feels responsible for her family out of guilt, feeling that whatever happened with her father is her fault. Even outside of her over-developed sense of responsibility, she avoids any serious relationships outside of her mother, sisters, and Easton. Instead, Mallory chooses casual dates and sexual relationships to avoid the pain and betrayal she associates with commitment ever since the failure of her parents’ marriage.
The introduction of Mallory’s sexual lifestyle also reveals the role of Sexuality and Relationships in Part 1. The first romantic partner introduced for Mallory is a girl with whom she went on a few dates the past summer, and Mallory meets her male friend, Hasan, for a brief encounter. Still, Mallory always sees these experiences as a fun way to let off a little steam rather than a way to connect with others. Mallory’s aversion to more emotional connections sets up her journey of learning how to open up to and lean on others throughout the novel rather than remaining aloof and extremely independent.
Part 1 briefly introduces Gender Discrimination and its Effects. Mallory notes that her employer at the garage is misogynistic, but for the most part, gender discrimination is not introduced until Mallory meets Defne. The woman challenges Mallory to acknowledge her skill like most men would rather than downplaying it, which many women are trained to do in society. Defne’s words foreshadow the extreme misogyny that Mallory later encounters in the chess world, and her words reveal another element of Defne’s personality, as her struggles with gender discrimination have impacted the professional choices she’s made.
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