42 pages • 1 hour read
Cassie Dandridge SelleckThe Pecan Man
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.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 1-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
The novel opens with narrator Ora Lee Beckworth recounting a summer 25 years past, the summer of 1976. At this time, the town of Mayville is preparing for Independence Day celebrations. Ora sits on her front porch, drinking tea and watching women hang decorations up and down the street. An African American woman named Blanche works for Ora Lee as a housekeeper.
Ora Lee describes the various parts of town, including an overgrown wooded area outside the downtown that serves as an encampment for unhoused people. It is there that the “Pecan Man” lives; he’s earned the moniker by subsisting on pecans that fall from the trees throughout town.
Chapter 2 Summary
Ora reveals that the Pecan Man’s real name is Eldred Mims and that he was convicted of murdering Skipper Kornegay, a 16-year-old boy. Ora plans to reveal the truth about Eldred—whom she calls Eddie—via her story.
In the spring of 1976, she hires Eddie to mow her lawn after seeing him dragging a mower around town. She overpays him and also sees that he receives lunch and iced tea while he works. One day, her neighbor Dovey Kincaid brings over a pie, insisting that she wants to be neighborly. Certain that this is not the case, Ora confronts her, asking Dovey her true motive. Dovey is worried about Eddie’s presence and certain that he is dangerous and, further, could cause people to think the “neighborhood’s gone colored all of a sudden” (10). Ora frankly tells Dovey that she should mind her own business, and Dovey storms back across the street, taking the pie with her.
Chapter 3 Summary
On September 24, Ora returns home from shopping at the Winn Dixie to find Blanche rocking her youngest child, Grace, in a chair. Grace is asleep, but her face is covered in tears, and Blanche is crying, too. When Ora asks Blanche what has happened, Blanche refuses to tell her. Ora demands that Blanche allow her to help her with whatever is wrong and is finally able to wrench the sleeping child away.
As Ora places Grace—still asleep—onto the guest bed, she notices that her legs are covered with dirt and blood. It appears that Grace has been sexually assaulted.
Ora goes into the kitchen, where Blanche is putting away the groceries, and tries to comfort her.
Chapter 4 Summary
When Blanche does not return home, her oldest daughter, Patrice, phones. Ora tells her that Blanche is not feeling well and that she and Grace will spend the night. After some protesting, Blanche agrees.
They discuss how to proceed with the attack on Grace. Initially, Ora wants to submit a police report, but Blanche is certain that Grace will be blamed for the rape. She reveals to Ora that Skipper Kornegay, the son of the chief of police, raped Grace. In the morning, they again discuss how to keep Grace safe. Ora wants Grace to come to her home after school for a while, but Blanche explains that she plans to keep her out of school in the short term.
Ora buys Grace new clothes to wear. When Blanche places the soiled ones in a bag, she assures Ora that she will not throw them out.
Chapter 5 Summary
Blanche tells Grace that Skipper’s attack was a dream, and, for a while, Grace appears to be all right. She goes to Ora’s house after school, and Ora enjoys her company. On Halloween, Ora makes her a witch’s costume, and Grace delights in giving candy to each of the children who come by.
After Grace and Blanche leave, teenagers too old for trick-or-treating visit Ora and demand candy, nonetheless. Ora shames most of them into leaving, but Skipper remains, and Ora tosses candy on the ground at his feet.
Days later, the homecoming parade travels past Ora’s front porch. She, Blanche, Grace, and some of Grace’s siblings have a small party for the occasion. However, when Grace sees Skipper in the parade, she panics. Ora rushes her inside to calm her down.
Chapter 6 Summary
Ora invites Blanche and her children to have Thanksgiving dinner with her for the first time. In the days leading up to the holiday, Ora’s daughters help her prepare by polishing the silverware. When one of Blanche’s daughters, ReNetta, remarks on the foolishness of owning silverware that is so rarely used, Ora tells them about preparing to wed her husband, Walter, as she finished college.
Chapter 7 Summary
Thanksgiving arrives, and Blanche suggests that they bring Eddie a plate of food. Ora argues that they should invite him to join them for dinner, and the women agree to leave the choice to him. He accepts the invitation to dinner.
The dinner is pleasant, with Eddie giving the blessing at Ora’s request. Ora notices that Grace is happy and upbeat, seemingly having forgotten the “bad dream.” After dinner, Eddie waits while Blanche packages leftovers for him and then asks Ora how Grace is doing. Stunned, Ora asks how Eddie knows of the incident. He explains that he found her after the assault and walked her to Ora’s home. Blanche’s oldest child, Marcus, asks what Eddie is referring to (Marcus had been told that Grace merely had a nightmare). Eddie realizes his mistake and rushes out. Though Ora and Grace try to invent a lie about Grace tripping on some rocks, Marcus does not believe them and follows Eddie.
Chapter 8 Summary
After Blanche and her girls head home, Ora sits alone, reading, until she is interrupted by someone at her window. It is Marcus; he has a black eye, and he is dirty and bloody. Ora cleans his wounds, but the cuts are severe. She demands that Marcus tell her what happened, and he reveals that he killed Skipper Kornegay.
At her kitchen table over tea, a frantic Marcus recounts the events to Ora. When he confronted Eddie about what happened to Grace, Eddie explained that he saw several boys laughing as they came out of the woods; Skipper was pulling up his pants as he ran to join his friends. Soon after, Eddie found Grace. Angered, Marcus then walked through town, trying to cool off while deciding how to proceed with the information. He encountered Skipper and his friends as they were leaving a pool hall and confronted Skipper with the details of the rape. Skipper pulled out a knife, threatening Marcus, who then ran. Skipper chased him, and the two boys fought, both of them injured in the scuffle. Marcus took the knife from Skipper and stabbed him.
Chapter 9 Summary
The next morning, Ora tells Marcus the plan that she has devised: He will take her late husband’s car and go to Fort Bragg, where he is stationed. She will explain to Blanche that, having learned the truth of what happened to Grace, Marcus was too upset to face Blanche. Ora instructs Marcus to write a note to Blanche to this effect.
After Marcus departs, Ora cleans the blood from her house with bleach. Blanche arrives, frantic about Marcus’s absence. She is dubious about the story Ora tells. Just then, a neighbor arrives at Ora’s door with the news that Marcus has died in a car accident.
Chapters 1-9 Analysis
The opening section of the novel introduces the key characters and the conflict they face. The novel’s setting—a fictitious Southern town named Mayville—features prominently in that conflict. Though the civil rights movement was well underway by 1976, Ora’s narrative indicates that many individuals in town are slow to change their thinking about racial equity. The town is racially segregated, with white and Black people residing in separate neighborhoods in separate parts of town. An unwritten rule forbids the two races from interacting, echoing the “separate but equal” mandate of the 1950s. The town’s residents take pride in their heritage, and their Southern-ness is an important component of their identity.
Ora, the narrator and main character, immediately reveals that Righting Past Wrongs motivates her to reveal a secret she’s kept for 25 years. The secret and Ora’s assertion that she has wronged someone instantly create tension, setting the plot in motion. The novel’s title and the immediate introduction of the eponymous Pecan Man establish his significance. That most of the townspeople know Eddie Mims only as “the Pecan Man” suggests that they have reduced him to a one-dimensional nickname and overlook his full humanity and individuality. His status as an unhoused person brings the scorn of the town, and because of this status—coupled with his race—he is considered dangerous. This unfounded belief is racially motivated and supported by Dovey Kincaid cautioning Ora against hiring him. Dovey couches her racism in concern, insisting that it is Ora’s safety and the safety of those in their neighborhood that motivate her, but Ora sees through her. That Ora is willing to disregard the manners that she was brought up to extoll by dismissing Dovey shows the way that Ora despises the racism that shapes much of Mayville.
Ora, in her interactions with Eddie, is careful not to make him feel ashamed or hurt his pride. She seeks to restore his dignity by hiring him. She frequently speaks of the charity work she has performed in the past when her late husband was alive. Ora suggests, however, that this charity work was an unspoken expectation of a wife of her class; her benevolence was more for appearances than out of compassion. Eddie neither shows signs of being dangerous nor seeks to take advantage of Ora or the opportunities she provides for him.
Skipper Kornegay’s rape of Grace provides the inciting incident for the novel’s conflict: Both Blanche and Ora know the culprit of this crime and must decide what to do with the information. Ora, who is white and accustomed to a justice system built to favor white people, initially does not understand Blanche’s adamant refusal to report Grace’s assault to the police. Blanche is certain that the police will fail to investigate Skipper because he is the son of a person in power and that Grace will be belittled and ultimately shamed for the crime because she is Black. In a sense, Grace would be regarded as culpable (either by lying about the assault or somehow inviting it). This disparity establishes the theme of Race and Injustice, demonstrating to Ora the extent of the privilege she enjoys. Ora agrees, then, with Blanche’s approach to handling the rape; she agrees to perpetuate the lie that the attack was merely Grace’s bad dream and did not actually happen. Blanche is hopeful that encouraging her to forget about the attack will protect Grace. However, when Grace is upset by the mere sight of Skipper in the homecoming parade, it’s clear the trauma she has suffered will affect her for the rest of her life.
When Eddie speaks of Grace’s attack, the lie unravels. Unaware that the attack has been kept a secret from Grace’s siblings (as well as from Grace herself, in theory), Eddie regrets speaking of the incident and fears that doing so has caused harm. Though Blanche and Ora keep the secret from the other siblings, Marcus’s suspicion ultimately causes both his downfall and Eddie’s.
Marcus’s love of his family and of Grace motivates him to pursue the truth of her attack. His recounting of his fight with Skipper suggests that Marcus initially tried to control his anger, but a combination of Skipper’s bravado (and sense of white superiority) and Marcus’s inability to let Skipper believe he’d face no consequences caused their fight. Marcus, in the immediate aftermath, knows that he has made a grave mistake by killing Skipper, no matter how justified he may have felt in the moment. He agrees with Ora that, because of his race, he will not be treated justly in any court of law. Marcus appears to have no choice but to flee. His decision to flee (with Ora’s help) results in his fatal car accident. In this way, Ora and Blanche’s lie has a ripple effect, harming others irreparably.
