52 pages • 1 hour read
Chris CrutcherStaying Fat For Sarah Byrnes
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 1-3 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
En route to visit his friend Sarah Byrnes in the psych ward, Eric Calhoune reminiscences about the times they have spent together, and especially their shared fun raising hell at their school, authoring an underground paper called Crispy Pork Rinds. Eric recalls the anger expressed by the vice principal, Mr. Mautz, when Eric and Sarah fought against his attempts at censorship, citing their constitutional rights. He whispers the name Crispy Pork Rinds into Sarah’s ear as she stares into space, catatonic, in her hospital ward. The mention of the paper doesn’t have the impact Eric hoped and he leaves distressed and stuck in his own memories of happier times.
Chapter 2 Summary
Eric continues to think about Sarah and their time spent as co-conspirators as he sits in his Contemporary American Thought class taught by Ms. Lemry. Lemry is also Eric’s swim coach. As the class debates contemporary issues, he thinks back to how he and Sarah got started with their zine writing. Their inspiration arrived in the form a kid named Dale Thorton, who had failed 8th grade so many times he had a driver’s license. Dale harassed both Sarah and Eric, calling them “fat boy” and “Scar Face” so they drafted their first newspaper story—“Man with Brain the Size of Tic Tac Mates with Amoeba; Couple gives birth to giant adjusto, names him Dale.” Every kid in their 8th grade class got a copy.
After CAT (Contemporary American Thought), Eric asks his teacher and coach, Ms. Lemry, what to make of Sarah’s confinement in the mental hospital. Ms. Lemry suggests that maybe this is her way of taking a break. This doesn’t give Eric much to go on.
Chapter 3 Summary
Eric and his friend Steve Ellerby goof around together at Eric’s house (where Steve hits on Eric’s attractive, youthful mom) until it’s time to head over to swim practice. Steve drives them, in his car decorated with inflammatory bumper stickers, each a calculated attack on fellow swimmer Mark Brittian, a pedantic evangelical. Ellerby and Eric both manage to outswim Mark during laps and savor their victory over pizza and soda. Later, Eric returns to the hospital to see Sarah. She still isn’t talking but Eric speaks with some of the hospital workers, who ask if there are any other friends who might come and visit Sarah to try and get her talking. The only sort of friend that Eric can think of is Dale Thornton, leading him to reminisce about their baiting Dale with Crispy Pork Rinds articles until they eventually made an unlikely friend out of him.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
In this section of the novel, the narrator explains his intense junior high self-consciousness. He felt constantly judged and was not equipped to defend himself until he met Sarah, whose scars have made her tough as nails. Sarah explained her burns by saying that a boiling pot of spaghetti spilled on her and her father denied her constructive surgery because he believed it was vain. It was their shared outsider status and belief in their own ugliness that gave them the ability to connect. Their writing empowered them, even to take on a bully like Dale Thornton.
In present day though, life is different for Eric. Swimming has given him the means to fit in and to feel better about his body. He has a new best friend, Steve Ellerby, a fellow swimmer. He still sees Sarah but less. But when she goes into the mental hospital he feels compelled to do whatever he can to get to the bottom of what’s bothering her. While guilt is part of his motive, it is also clear that he cares intensely for her as a friend.
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By Chris Crutcher
