35 pages • 1 hour read
Gary SotoTaking Sides
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1991A 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 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Lincoln nails the front door shut after the intruder flees the scene. As Lincoln walks to school, he can’t help but wonder who the thief is. Everyone looks suspect. At school, Monica can tell something is wrong, but Lincoln won’t talk about it, finally snapping, “I said I don’t want to talk about it” (99). Monica rebuffs his attempt to hold hands, and he reflects on all that seems wrong with his life: “His knee [is] busted, his house nearly ripped off, and Tony [is] no longer his carnal” (99). He later ignores Monica again in the hallway despite her calling out to him.
At practice, Yesutis has no sympathy for Lincoln’s hurt knee: He makes Lincoln practice but tells him afterward that he won’t play in the Franklin game. Lincoln, angry, confronts him about the 1970 game and stares Yesutis down in front of his teammates. Everyone is silent afterward, and Lincoln even waves James off. He limps home alone.
Chapter 11 Summary
Lincoln arrives home, where his mother and Roy press him for further details about the robbery. He also tells them that Yesutis has pulled him from the starting lineup. Lincoln’s mother tells him that he has mail, and he finds that the envelope contains $4 from Tony, but no letter.
The next morning, Lincoln’s knee is still swollen. At school, a teammate, Durkins, expresses sympathy that Lincoln will not be starting, Lincoln says, “I hate to say it, but I think you’re gonna lose” (113). Durkins questions his choice of pronouns, asking whether Lincoln is really part of their team. Later, Lincoln apologizes to Monica and tells her the news of the break-in at his house. He also tells her that he’s been thinking about Tony.
After school, the team gathers in the gym. Yesutis announces James will start in Lincoln’s place that evening.
Chapter 12 Summary
Lincoln returns home to have dinner before the game. He tells his mother about Yesutis’s treatment of him and suggests that the coach might be racist.
In the hall before the game, a player named Bukowski confronts Lincoln about his telling Durkins he thought Columbus would lose. Lincoln defends his opinion, and the two come close to blows but don’t fight. James assures Lincoln of his support.
Columbus is down from the start of the game, but Lincoln is preoccupied scanning the crowd for all the people he knows from both Franklin and Columbus. At halftime, he walks out during Coach Yesutis’s speech to say hello to his Franklin friends and old coach. When Yesutis tells Lincoln he is going into the game late in the second half, Lincoln makes a decision: “Lincoln [is] going to play for himself, not school pride” (128). He enjoys playing with his new team and his old team. Franklin wins, though Lincoln narrows the score; both his former and current teammates congratulate him on his playing. Yesutis complains that Lincoln has a “bad attitude,” but Roy stands up for Lincoln, and Columbus’s principal hints that he may fire Yesutis.
Chapter 13 Summary
Lincoln wakes up reeling from the night before, including his reunion with his former teammates over pizza: “ Lincoln, his mother, and Roy had gone out with the players from Franklin” (134). Tony and Lincoln made amends and another bet, this time on that night’s game between the Warriors and the Kings. Since the Warriors won, Lincoln now calls Tony to tell him he will bring $4 with him when he goes to the Mission District later. Tony reveals that he bought the TV for $15 and will give it to Lincoln for Christmas. Lincoln calls Monica to ask if she will be his girlfriend.
Chapters 10-13 Analysis
Chapters 10 and 11 are the emotional low points before the story’s climax. Most everything seems to be out of control for Lincoln in these chapters. The break-in at the house in the Mission District is a piece of Lincoln’s past he overlooked until the Sycamore house is broken into; at the same time, the attempted robbery of the Mendozas’ new home seems to render the move meaningless and therefore all the more distressing for Lincoln. In the aftermath of the break-in, Lincoln lashes out at several people, including Monica. When she questions whether something is bothering him, he snaps, “I said I don’t want to talk about it” (99), and then goes on to ignore her, largely because he doesn’t want to admit his own fear to himself.
Lincoln’s injury and Yesutis’s treatment of Lincoln in practice add to the list of challenges Lincoln is facing. Lincoln’s allusion to the 1970 game is on the one hand a sign of growing confidence; he keeps his temper but tacitly challenges Yesutis’s racism. Similarly, he is able to say, “I think you’re going to lose” to Durkins (113), which is a signifier both of the otherness he feels and of his growing confidence in his opinions. At the same time, Lincoln is clearly not at peace with Yesutis’s decision to bench him, even as it frees him from having to choose sides. When he learns that James will be playing as starter in his place, Lincoln struggles to contain his disappointment, saying nothing when James tells him that Yesutis is “all wrong.”
Beginning with Lincoln and Tony’s phone call in Chapter 1, the entire novel builds up to the game between Columbus and Franklin. As a game that pits Lincoln’s past against his present, the moment marks the novel’s climax; Yesutis’s decision to put Lincoln in the game would seem to force him to pick a side. Instead, Lincoln invents an option for himself that the narrative had hinted at but not fleshed out: “Lincoln was going to play for himself, not school pride” (128). This revelation has long been coming, and it reveals Lincoln’s new confidence in who he is: He embraces his ethnic, cultural, and class ties to the Mission District while accepting that he now lives in Sycamore, rounding out the novel’s exploration of Identity as Multifaceted.
This is Lincoln’s real “victory,” which his solid athletic performance in the game underscores. The recognition he garners from Columbus and Franklin players alike reflects and reinforces his newfound ease navigating between the two worlds. The only thing that momentarily mars the resolution of Lincoln’s character arc is Yesutis’s response, but even then, Soto hints at a happy ending; Yesutis’s firing would mark Lincoln’s triumph over the story’s main antagonist.
Chapter 13 comprises the denouement, wrapping up loose plotlines like Lincoln’s argument with Tony and interest in Monica. The two relationships complement each other. Lincoln retains his ties to the past via his renewed friendship with Tony, their new bet underscoring the continuity of the relationship. As someone who shares Lincoln’s Hispanic American heritage but is also attending Columbus, Monica embodies Lincoln’s current life, which he embraces by formalizing their relationship.
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By Gary Soto
