The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

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Part 2, Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “The Bike Accident”

Part 2, Chapters 1-6 Summary

The narrative circles back to 1989 in Dr. Fukomara’s, or “Dr. Snip It’s” (67), office. Deciding against the vasectomy, Sam leaves and drives back to his own office, where he works as an ophthalmologist at a practice he shares with his one of his best friends, Michaela “Mickie” Kennedy. When Sam’s father had a stroke, he could no longer work as a pharmacist, so Sam and Mickie purchased the pharmacy building to use as their office. Mickie and Sam have been friends for 18 years, and neither has had great success in their individual romantic relationships; Mickie is not married but has had a string of failed relationships, while Eva and Sam’s relationship lacks physical intimacy, and the two are growing distant from each other (Sam even has a cabin in Lake Tahoe where he goes to be alone sometimes).

Sam, who now wears colored contacts to mask his red irises, returns to the office to find a woman called Trina Crouch waiting to see him. The actual patient, Trina’s daughter Daniela, has lost sight in her eye, supposedly after a bike accident at her dad’s house. Realizing she looks familiar, Sam sees her last name is Bateman.

Sam returns to his flashback in 1964. David Bateman mostly leaves him alone, though he does threaten with his fist. Sam and Ernie remain close friends, but the other students exclude Sam from their interactions and from birthday parties. On Valentine’s Day, he receives only one “card,” from the popular girl Valerie Johnson: an envelope containing only a dead fly.

One day, Sam finds himself hiding from Bateman and his cronies in the bathroom. As he hides in one of the stalls, he overhears them having a conversation involving anti-gay slurs. Bateman throws a spitball at the stall door, and it opens, revealing Sam’s hiding spot. In the ensuing scuffle, Sam accidentally urinates in Bateman’s eye. As Bateman and his friends yell and scramble about, Sam slips out the door in a sprint back to the safety of the classroom. Bateman returns to class late, and the teacher sends him to the principal’s office. Sam avoids Bateman until afternoon pickup. Once in the car with his mother, Sam sees Bateman looking for him. Madeline asks Sam to go back inside to deliver a field trip permission slip, but Sam lies that he is ill. When she leaves the car to go inside, Bateman presses his face against the window and threatens to kill Sam, but he leaves before Madeline returns.

Madeline takes the car to Fast Eddy’s Chevron for an oil change. Sam enjoys going because Eddy, the head mechanic, gives him lollipops. Sam overhears Eddy and Gary using figurative automotive language to make veiled sexual comments about his mother. Feigning sick again, Sam retreats to his room at home; “I began to realize my mother was something special to look at” (88). After tossing his lollipop in the trash, he asks his father the meaning of the comments, and Max says it is time to find a new mechanic.

Part 2, Chapters 1-6 Analysis

Part 2 moves forward into the “present day” of 1989 and right back where the novel began, with Sam contemplating the vasectomy, a decision increasingly revealed as a conflicted convergence of past influences. Through Sam’s thoughts, the author reveals more about his personal life, particularly his failing relationship with Eva, as well as past situations that inform Sam’s choices in adulthood. His childhood trauma complicates the choice of having children, and it explains why he may have trouble settling into a committed relationship. Though this flash forward furthers the plot action, it is also expositional, giving more detail about Sam’s adult life—revealing that he’s chosen a career in ophthalmology, that he maintains close friendships with people from school, and that he now wears colored contacts. Sam’s disclosure of his colored contacts reveals he is still self-conscious about his eye color. The pain of the prejudice he experienced as a child has followed him into adulthood, and he feels the need to protect his patients from seeing the truth. It is unclear if Sam is more ashamed of his natural eye color or his desire to conceal it.

First grade initiates Sam’s movement from innocence to awareness in his coming-of-age journey. His classmates’ cruelty opens his eyes to how unkind humans can be. Returning to his flashback, Sam recounts more of his school experience and focuses on the social isolation he endured. Despite his friendship with Ernie, all the students still shun him. The Valentine’s Day incident, though brief, is particularly evocative as it encapsulates the sting of rejection and cruelty. David Bateman’s presence is another looming threat, and the author creates suspense when Sam is trapped in the restroom stall with David and his cronies. Although the urination incident is slightly humorous, there is an undercurrent of discomfort as Sam once again finds himself in an unsupervised area with the dangerous bully. David’s murderous threats echo through the narrative, foreshadowing his revenge on Sam for humiliating him on the playground and now in the restroom.

The young Sam also becomes aware of his mother in a new way in these chapters. When he understands the mechanics’ lewd comments, Sam’s eyes are opened to another kind of abuse. He understands his mother is beautiful, yet men take her beauty as an opportunity to say degrading things about her. It is a perplexing reality he cannot fully understand at his age, and seeing his mother as someone else sees her is a shocking experience for the young boy. Though his father makes it a joke, the incident shakes Sam, and when he tosses Eddy’s lollipop in the trash, it symbolizes Sam casting off a part of his childlike view of the world.