Fitting Ends by Dan Chaon
"Fitting Ends" by Dan Chaon explores the complexities of memory and familial relationships through the experiences of the narrator, Stewart. The narrative is structured around Stewart's recollections of his childhood, particularly his fraught relationship with his older brother, Del. Central to the story is a haunting event involving a ghostly figure near their hometown of Pyramid, Nebraska, which parallels the tragic death of Del, who was killed by a train.
Stewart reflects on past incidents, including a near-fatal accident on a grain elevator where Del saved his life, only to be blamed by Stewart for an act of recklessness. This lie strains their relationship, especially since Del had a history of violence, which shaped their interactions. As an adult, Stewart grapples with the repercussions of his actions during a visit to his aging mother, who has lost her hearing. The narrative delves into themes of guilt, denial, and the search for meaning in the unresolved aspects of one's life, ultimately highlighting the enduring impact of family dynamics and the burden of unspoken truths.
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Fitting Ends by Dan Chaon
First published: 1995
Type of plot: Domestic realism
Time of work: The 1980's and the 1990's
Locale: Pyramid, a small village in Nebraska
Principal Characters:
Stewart , a man trying to piece together his pastDel , his brotherTheir father and mother
The Story
Because "Fitting Ends" is about a man trying to fit all the loose ends of his life together into a coherent story, it does not have a chronological plot structure. Instead it revolves around various stories the narrator, Stewart, recalls from his childhood. The first such story, about his brother Del, which appears in a book titled More Tales of the Weird and Supernatural, recounts three different appearances of a ghostly figure walking on the railroad tracks near the nearly deserted village of Pyramid, Nebraska, and then falling on his knees in front of a train. A few years after these supposed sightings began, Del, who was seventeen at the time, was killed by a train while walking along the tracks.
About a year before he died, Del saved Stewart's life. The two brothers had gone to the top of the grain elevator to fix a hole. While Stewart was clowning around dancing and singing, he slipped, but Del caught his arm and pulled him back up. However, when the boys' father grabbed Stewart to punish him for his foolishness, Stewart said that Del had pushed him. The boys' father believed the lie because Del had a history of violence against his brother; he had just returned from a special program for juvenile delinquents after trying to strangle Stewart. When they were younger, Del had thrown a can of motor oil at Stewart's head and pushed him out of a moving pickup truck. The boys' parents never find out about Stewart's lie.
In the next section of the story, Stewart, who now has a job at a small private college in upstate New York, is married, and has had his first child, comes to visit his mother, who has gone deaf, just after her sixtieth birthday. During the visit, when Stewart and his father are sitting together one evening, Stewart brings up the time he almost fell off the elevator but does not confess to the lie, saying only the event "seems significant sometimes."
The story then moves back to an account of the strained relationship between Stewart and Del after the incident on the grain elevator. Stewart knew there was no way out of the situation he had created, and after a while Del stopped denying that he had tried to push Stewart, perhaps beginning to believe that he had. Until his death, Del remained a defiant and belligerent young man. The story ends with Stewart watching his deaf mother moving about in the kitchen during his visit, thinking that at such a moment, everything seems clear to him.