46 pages • 1 hour read
Whistling Past the Graveyard
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Chapters 27-33Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 27 Summary
Porter arrives and fights with Lulu after Lulu accuses Mamie of not doing what they “pay her for.” Porter asks Eula if she and James want to come in the car, and Eula nods. At a diner, Starla tells Porter her story, starting with Priscilla. She says that Wallace kidnapped James, and she reveals that Eula killed Wallace with a skillet.
Chapter 28 Summary
James and Eula sit at a separate table, and Starla tries to get Porter to use the bathroom so that she can tell Eula about how she changed the story, but Porter is already speaking to Eula. He suspected that Starla “modified” the part about Wallace kidnapping the baby. Porter tells Eula that he’s friendly with a county deputy, so he thinks the police will treat her respectfully. Starla is less confident.
Starla criticizes Porter for not revealing that he and Lulu got a divorce. Porter didn’t think Starla remembered Lulu—she left when Starla was “so little.” Now, Starla thinks that Lulu is “horrible.” Porter admits that he made a mistake.
For lunch, Porter suggests Riedell’s diner, but Starla doesn’t want to support a racist business, so Porter finds a restaurant that serves white and Black people. Starla thinks that Eula should run, but Eula wants to confront what she did.
The Cayuga Springs community was worried about Starla and formed search parties to find her. Mamie put yellow bows around a post on Patti Lynn’s front porch and a tree in Starla’s yard––a sign that she was waiting for Starla to come home. Porter explains Mamie’s behavior: Mamie wants Starla to be a “good person” and learn to accept rules. When Mamie sees Starla, she shakes her and swats at Eula until Porter calms her.
Chapter 29 Summary
Porter makes sure that Eula has what she needs for James’s formula. After Starla takes a bath, Starla spies on Porter and Eula. Porter asks Eula to help with Starla, and Eula tells him that Starla needs to know that he loves her.
Starla can’t sleep, so she hangs out with Eula and James. Starla tells Eula that “everything” is bothering her, but then she narrows her discontent down to Lulu. Starla doesn’t want to be like her mother, and Eula doesn’t think Starla is like Lulu on the inside.
Chapter 30 Summary
The sheriff arrives and questions Eula about Wallace. Starla interjects and says what happened, but the sheriff wants to hear Eula say it. Starla says that Wallace kidnapped the baby, but Eula tells the truth and describes the young Black girl who left James at the church. The girl is Gracie, the daughter of Bess, who works for Patti Lynn’s family. The sheriff doesn’t arrest Eula, but someone from Child Welfare will come for the baby.
Chapter 31 Summary
Patti Lynn and Starla reunite, and the former notices Starla’s new hair color and compares her to Huckleberry Finn. She shows Starla the newspaper articles about her. Patti Lynn wants to go for a bike ride, but Starla doesn’t want to get in trouble with Porter, who went somewhere mysterious. Porter comes home and says that Patti Lynn can sleep over, and Starla, Patti Lynn, Porter, and Eula make dinner together.
Mamie comes home and yells at them for “messing up” her kitchen. Porter calms her and announces that he and Starla can move back into the apartment at Mrs. White’s house. Mamie says that there’s room in the house for them, but Porter declines the offer. He says that Eula can stay with them until the sheriff lets her go. Starla doesn’t want Eula to go, but Porter believes that Eula should choose her own “plans.”
Chapter 32 Summary
Patti Lynn sleeps over at Starla’s because Patti Lynn’s sister, Cathy, is James’s mother. Mamie claims that Cathy is “chunky,” so no one could tell she was pregnant. The Todds will let another family adopt James, but Starla wants the Todds to keep him. In the fort, she looks at her father’s high school yearbook and wonders if Porter wishes that he let another family adopt her. Porter tells Starla that he’d be “lost” without her, so he doesn’t wish that he put her up for adoption. Starla thinks that Lulu wishes she’d have put her up for adoption.
At the apartment at Mrs. White’s house, Eula prepares bologna and cheese sandwiches. White gives them silverware, dishes, pans, and towels. She says that Starla can come downstairs and use the phone or watch TV whenever she wants. White stopped teaching piano and is glad to have people in the house again.
Starla bikes to Patti Lynn’s “closed up” house. Patti Lynn speaks to Starla outside, and Patti Lynn explains that the Todds sent Cathy to live with family members in Ohio. Cathy can never come back, and the news made Patti Lynn cry—though Patti Lynn doesn’t like her sister. With Eula, Starla thinks about how her choice to run away made Cathy vanish and Eula kill Wallace. Eula attributes the events to “God’s plan,” which isn’t a “free pass.”
Chapter 33 Summary
On Sunday, Eula goes to a Black church, and Porter takes Starla to their white church. Mamie invites them for dinner, but Eula is cooking chicken. The Todds aren’t in their pew, and when Starla tries talking to Patti Lynn about James and Cathy, Patti Lynn gets upset. Eula thinks that Patti Lynn needs time for the pain to subside.
The sheriff won’t press charges against Eula for killing Wallace. The sheriff says that Wallace couldn’t keep a job because he inevitably fought with his employers. The sheriff believes that the loss of Wallace means one less Black person to “worry about.” The sheriff also won’t press charges against Eula for taking James because he doesn’t want to subject the Todds to “the courts.”
Eula decides to stay with Porter and Starla. After her pies become a hit, she rents a room nearby. Starla follows the civil rights movement on TV. She knows about the March on Washington and the sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. Eula won’t join the activists—she believes that she’s fought enough.
Starla celebrates Thanksgiving with Eula, Porter, White, and Cyrena, who brings Starla a troll doll from Troy, who brought it to Cyrena’s school. Sometimes, Starla thinks about Lulu, which makes her hurt, but then she thinks about the Thanksgiving dinner and feels better.
Chapters 27-33 Analysis
The arrival of Porter thematically pertains to Wishful Thinking Versus Confronting Adversity. Unlike Lulu, Porter holds himself accountable for how Starla feels about him and Lulu. He admits that he made a mistake by not telling her about the divorce, and he expresses his deep love for her when she asks him if he wishes that another family had adopted her. By facing his faults and Starla’s challenging questions, Porter becomes a better father and strengthens his relationship with Starla, so dealing directly with hardship produces personal growth. This stands in opposition to his past actions in which he assumed that Starla didn’t remember Lulu and ignorantly believed that she was content with her life with Mamie.
Porter also helps Eula confront adversity when he convinces her to tell her story to a sheriff friend. Equating the law with racism, Starla wants Eula to run away, but Eula has a different view. She says, “A body can’t run from what they done. They carry it with them inside. It fester and spread like poison if it’s buried. It gotta be out in the air where it can heal” (417). Eula believes that facing hardship generates healing. She doesn’t want to go on the run, hoping that she can indefinitely avoid punishment. She’d rather grow and face the consequences. This growth stands in contrast to more passive actions of her past, such as avoiding confrontation during the car accident or heading to Nashville in lieu of facing consequences.
The Impact of Racism on Individuals and Communities comes into play as Eula avoids jail. Referring to Wallace, James, and the Todds, the sheriff tells Porter, “As far as I’m concerned, one less Negro to worry about. As for that baby…I won’t drag a good family through the courts just to make a point to some colored woman” (480). The sheriff’s conclusion exposes the intricacies of racism. The sheriff doesn’t legally punish Eula, which, while a positive outcome, occurs because he thinks she’s inferior. His racist attitude upsets Starla, and she wants Porter to confront the sheriff. However, it doesn’t make sense for Porter to challenge the sheriff for not bringing charges against Eula—the outcome they wanted. The topsy-turvy logic links to the byzantine system of racism and reducing a person to their skin color.
Cathy’s narrative parallels Eula’s story. Both Cathy and Eula had babies when they were teens, and their families took their babies from them. Eula’s brother and father increased their abuse after the baby, and Cathy’s parents send her to live with relatives in Ohio. The Todds are not ready to confront their afflictions. They make their home unwelcoming, and they don’t go to church. Starla tries talking to Patti Lynn, but Patti Lynn becomes upset. Starla says, “Eula explained that sometimes it took time for the hurt to go away enough to be able to look at something so painful” (484). The book proposes that a person not facing their struggles isn’t necessarily avoiding them or practicing wishful thinking—they might be waiting for the pain to subside.
Crandall continues to use humor to balance out the serious topics in this final section. For Eula, Starla summarizes what’s happening with the Todds, “They said she can’t never come home again. Patti Lynn cried when she told me—and she don’t even like Cathy. It was terrible sad” (473). The lighthearted moment arrives when Starla points out that Patti Lynn doesn’t “even like” her sister. The sentiment plays on the trope of sibling rivalry, and the honesty brings comic relief and links to The Complexity of Familial Relationships. Patti Lynn doesn’t like her sister, but that doesn’t mean she wants Cathy banished forever.
In the final chapters, Starla embraces a complex family dynamic. She doesn’t romanticize living with Porter and Lulu but appreciates the cross-section of people who care about her. The Thanksgiving meal symbolizes Starla’s new approach to family, as it brings together her father, Eula, Mrs. White, and Cyrena. These are the people invested in Starla’s well-being, and when thinking about Lulu makes her sad, she thinks of Thanksgiving, remembering the people who love her. This completes her character arc, as she now believes in found family and stops believing in fantastical alternatives.
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