37 pages • 1 hour read
Peter HellerThe Dog Stars
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 2, Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 2, Chapter 1 Summary
Heller raises dramatic tension as nine mena quarter-mile behind Hig stalk him. Bangley’s precise directions save Hig, who shoots four of the men. Days earlier, Jasper dies in his sleep, causing Hig to extend the fishing and hunting trip. Hig radios Bangley on the tenth day and soon after, Bangley relays back, “Hig you got company” (118). He adds, “There is no way they can hear us Hig. They are upwind […] As far as they are concerned, Hig, you are solo. Solo prey” (119).
As Hig gets stalked, Bangley instructs Hig to act casually, as though clueless to the stalkers. Bangley tells Hig to make it to a draw in the trail, hide the gun and two dead deer on the sled, and shoot the men right to left as they reach the lip of the hill. “They know you are armed,” Bangley says. “They want your meat they want your weapon. They are not armed. Not with guns saw no guns” (120).The bearded men wield machetes; Hig hides, waiting for the men. A round of mortar fire, which concusses Hig scatter the five men Hig doesn’t kill.
Hig returns to the abandoned airport. He realizes the essential nature of Bangley’s help, as Heller further characterizes each man’s dependency on the other. Hig discovers Bangley was raised on a farm, and Bangley refers to Hig as the only family, beside his wife and son, Bangley has ever known.
Hig prepares to fly to Grand Junction, Colorado, hoping to make contact with the person he heard on the airplane tower radio three years ago. Hig does a perimeter patrol prior to his flight and visits nearby families. Overcome by tears, and the families’ genuine sympathy for Jasper’s death, Hig holds a little girl’s hand, as Heller creates a moment of compassion between the diseased families and Hig.
Hig enjoys a panoramic view of the perimeter as he flies, and the amount of wildlife appears to be increasing. Hig recalls stocking the woodpile for his Uncle Pete, despite both men knowing Uncle Pete would die before winter’s end. Hig says of his trip: “I wasn’t going to count the hours. I had a plane full of fuel and good weather and I was going to take off and fly west and see how far I got” (149).
While flying, memories of Jasper visit Hig, who narrates his view of the destruction of the landscape below: “the ski area El Dora scarred with old trails and slopes, the lines of the lift just below” (152). “I used to love flying like this” Hig thinks, as optimism gives way to hopelessness, “now I don’t feel anything” (154).
Book 2, Chapter 2 Summary
As Hig flies towards Grand Junction, he spots cattle, then a person, along with a garden that is larger than his and Bangley’s. Hig realizes the figure is a woman. An older man comes outside from the home and shoots at Hig’s plane, shattering the cockpit glass, shards of which cut Hig. Instead of anger, Hig feels gratitude, for the shots wake Hig from his growing hopelessness. Hig says of the woman:
without the blood sickness probably, and not frozen on a poster in Bangley’s shop or spilled on the ground behind you, too young, with a kitchen knife in her hand […] and you are willing to forget everything. Like checking the landing (161).
Hig’s most pressing task is to the land the Beast. He throws a smoke bomb to determine the wind’s direction, in order to land safely. Hig’s gas supply is low: “Just over twelve gallons left. Less than an hour. And less than an hour in the two jugs. Not even enough to get back. Dumb” (164).
Hig recalls Bangley’s precise ability to not forget anything in moments of preparation. Before Hig leaves the Beast, Hig pours the remaining gas into the tanks on each wing, puts the key in his right pocket, and brings grenades, “two of Bangley’s Eggs of Death” (165), given to Hig at the end Chapter 1.
Book 2, Chapter 3 Summary
Hig arrives at the stone house he witnessed from the air and finds it empty: “Place looked suddenly dead. Bucket kicked over in the yard, a dirty cooking spoon beside it” (166). Hig has a standoff with the old man and the woman, who are hiding in a canyon near their home. He’s spotted the pair through his rifle scope. The old man shoots at Hig and the man’s shots whiz past just above Hig’s head: “The blast blew chips of sandstone from my snug rock all over the right side of my face” (170).
Hig wants the old man and the woman to know he can kill them but also that he does not want to. He writes a message on a quilt and hangs the quilt over the lip of the canyon. The note reads, “I-COULD-BLOW-YOU-TO-SMITHER-EENS-BUT-I-WON’T—PEACE” (176) Hig then tosses a warning grenade into the canyon. Hig yells more, negotiating: “Okay you can keep your guns. I’m coming down” (179). The old man agrees, lowering his gun. The chapter closes as Hig returns to the Beast for venison jerky and another grenade.
Book 2, Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Chapter 1 presents new insights into Bangley’s past. That Bangley never told Hig Bangley was a farmer creates a two-fold effect: first, Hig realizes Bangley can do everything—gardening, carpentry, hunting—better without Hig, which raises the question of whether Bangley might do away with Hig, if Bangley deems it necessary. At the same time, it suggests Bangley’s loneliness, and desire for human connection. After nine men stalk Hig in Chapter 1, no longer can Hig and Bangley consider themselves alone. Chapter 1 shows Hig just how essential Bangley’s survivalist, shoot-to-kill personality is to their survival. Of quintessential importance in these chapters is Heller’s insistence on naming wildlife, and describing the vast landscape, through Hig. This suggests Heller’s wish to remind of the power and beauty of nature.
Chapter 2 carries the air of new beginnings: “Whoosh off a band of cliff. And the valley opens: a green river backed by a high double mountain with a swooping saddle between. Orchards, the neat rows of tufted trees on either side of the river” (157). Hig wants to fly west to Grand Junction, in the hope he will find someone there. The sense of freedom Hig experiences airborne provides brief narrative relief after the tense stalking scene, prior. But Chapter 2 is also rife with imagery of longing, as Hig recalls tender moments with Melissa. The moment when Hig breaks into tears visiting the families, then holds a little girls’ hand, signifies a deep need for human connection, communicating the sorrow of loss. Add to that Jasper’s death and Hig’s situation worsens. Despite this, Hig still experiences beauty when flying, which returns him to a simpler beauty.
In Jasper’s absence, the old man and young woman living in the stone house offer Hig the possibility of companionship, even as the old man almost kills him.
Related Titles
By Peter Heller
