57 pages • 1 hour read
The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
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Chapters 9-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary
Tanner researches Louise but can’t find anything on Google about the Louise Wilt she is living with. On a call with Jules, she finds out that Louise keeps her gun unloaded and locked in her nightstand. Tanner drives Louise to her physical therapy appointment, worried about a clicking sound being made by the engine and suspicious that August didn’t fix it when he worked on the car. Tanner tries to relax and put her worry out of her mind and gets ready for her date with August. He stands her up, which disappoints her, so when cocktail hour begins, Louise offers her a drink. Tanner doesn’t drink but eventually accepts a vodka tonic. She has a stilted conversation with Louise about her soccer career and school but doesn’t tell her what happened at the frat party.
She turns on the news as Louise goes to the bathroom. There is a special report about a 48-year-old cold case, a robbery of $3 million worth of cash and jewels. The new suspect is Patricia Nichols, who is suspected to be living in Atlanta. They release a photo of Patricia with age-progression software, and Tanner stops dead. It looks just like Louise. She panics as she listens to the rest of the report about how Patricia was an alleged associate of mobster Salvatore D’Amato, who is shortly to be released from prison after being incarcerated for tax fraud and killing a fellow inmate. Louise returns, and Tanner pretends that she’s fine and convinces herself that it’s a coincidence.
That night, Patricia receives a phone call from George. George says that people are coming to get her but that running away is impossible, as the place that George is in has heavy surveillance. Louise offers to come and get George, but George hangs up, still in danger, prompting Louise to realize that she is out of time.
Chapter 10 Summary
Tanner wakes in the middle of the night from a nightmare while a thunderstorm is raging. Louise barges into her room. She demands that Tanner get up and pack her things to leave. She doesn’t answer Tanner’s questions, and when Tanner hesitates, Louise offers her $10,000 to be her driver—enough money for Tanner to go back to Northwestern. Tanner calls Louise a thief, but Louise doesn’t respond. Tanner says she won’t drive Louise, but after thinking more, she decides to go. She follows Louise to the back shed, where she finds a mint-green Jaguar XKE convertible. Tanner drives out onto the street, seeing red and blue lights flying down the road, potentially toward Louise’s house. Tanner continues driving through her panic and Louise directs them to the freeway, heading north to Tennessee. Louise works on a crossword puzzle. When Tanner asks where they’re going, Louise replies “California,” which is a long drive from Atlanta. Tanner then panics as she realizes she left her phone behind, but Louise notes that it’s a good thing, meaning they aren’t trackable. Tanner feels dizzy, noting that she is driving away from her entire life. She feels off-balance but also alive.
Chapter 11 Summary
Jules calls the police again after Charlie discovers Tanner’s phone. Officer Danny Shields answers, and Jules says that now, along with Louise, Tanner is also missing. She also emails the officer a picture of Louise to distribute, and Officer Rosa King looks at the picture and connects it to the age-progressed photo of the robbery suspect Patricia.
Chapter 12 Summary
Louise wakes up after falling asleep in the car and worries that Tanner has figured out her past based on her thief accusation. Louise doesn’t believe that the police have been coming for her, but the rushed departure was due to her need to reach George before Salvatore D’Amato does. Louise then instructs Tanner to pull off at the next exit so that they can have breakfast at Waffle House. Tanner is still panicking and believes that the police are on their tail, but after driving through the early hours of morning, she’s hungry. As they eat, Tanner asks more questions about why Louise needs to get to California so urgently. Louise tells her that she’s going to see her friend George but says that it’s better if Tanner doesn’t know the specifics. Tanner also asks Louise to store her gun and ammo separately. Though she is still nervous and uncertain, Tanner agrees to drive Louise to California, with the stipulation that if the police catch them, Louise will say that she kidnapped Tanner. Louise is calm and in good spirits as they return to the road, and Tanner anxiously babbles to fill the silence, since the Jaguar’s antenna is broken and there’s no music.
Chapter 13 Summary
Two days after Louise is reported missing, Jules texts in the sibling group chat telling Charlie and Lucy to come to Louise’s house because FBI agents want to talk to them. Jules also mentions that the police found tire marks leading away from the back shed, though the Mercury is still in the garage. After 25 minutes, Lucy replies and suggests the existence of a second car, a Jaguar.
Chapter 14 Summary
Tanner and Louise continue on the road, and Tanner laments the Jaguar’s lack of air conditioning. Tanner yearns for her phone. When they make it to St. Louis, Tanner demands that they stop at the iconic arch. Louise resists, but Tanner wins. They buy two tickets for the elevator that takes people to the top of the arch, but while they’re in line, Louise sees a metal detector. She tries to pull Tanner out of line, and when Tanner doesn’t go with her, Louise tells her that she put the gun in Tanner’s bag. They jump out of line, drawing the attention of a security guard who questions them. Louise tries to get away from him and tells him that she wanted to sit down because she got tired. The security guard tries to guide them to a bench, but when he touches Louise, she swats him with her purse. The guard takes them to his office and questions them, then searches their bags. Tanner panics, but Louise tells her to give her bag to the guard. He searches it and then gives it back and dismisses them. Tanner questions Louise about the missing gun, and Louise says that she really thought she put it in Tanner’s bag. Tanner then realizes that Louise is afraid of heights and didn’t want to go to the top of the arch. When Tanner tries to start the car, it won’t work, and when she pops the hood, she realizes that the fuel pump is broken.
Chapter 15 Summary
Three days after Louise went missing, FBI Special Agent Lorna Huang questions Jules, Charlie, and Lucy at their mother’s house. Agent Huang tells them that Louise and Tanner have been spotted in St. Louis. The siblings have no idea why they would be there. Agent Huang then asks about the car and tells them that it’s registered to a dead man in Florida. The siblings don’t believe that Louise would have stolen it, but the evidence doesn’t look good. Toward the end of the interview, Lucy pipes up and says that she doesn’t think that Louise is their mom’s real name.
Chapters 9-15 Analysis
These chapters introduce the 1975 heist. Tanner sees the news broadcast that implicates a woman who looks stunningly like Louise in the 1975 Copley Plaza Hotel heist. Though she initially manages to convince herself that it must be a coincidence because “all old white women are nearly indistinguishable from one another” (82), this coincidence coupled with Louise’s other strange behaviors puts Tanner further on edge. After a mysterious phone call from George, Louise decides to run and wakes up Tanner to be her getaway driver. The slow reveal of Louise’s criminal past, coupled with Tanner’s subverted expectations about “all old white women,” reinforces the novel’s point that elderly people are underestimated.
These chapters develop the idea of overlooking and underestimating people when they introduce Special Agent Lorna Huang and the FBI to the Tanner and Louise case. Special Agent Huang believes that Louise is likely Patricia Nichols, the woman she believes carried out the 1975 Copley Plaza Heist. Of Louise’s children, Lucy is the one who knows about the secret Jaguar and that Louise may not be their mother’s real name. Jules and Charlie seem bewildered that their octogenarian mother could have so many secrets, which illustrates how Louise’s age has helped her hide from scrutiny in the later period of her 48 years on the run. Special Agent Huang, however, does not discount Louise as a subject due to either her gender or age, thinking that it makes sense for a woman to have successfully pulled off the heist and evaded capture for so long. It’s not explicitly stated, but implicitly suggested, that previous male FBI agents looking into the Copley Plaza case overlooked Patricia/Louise, speaking to the theme of Misogyny and Feminine Rage.
Oakley begins a literary version of the road movie genre to initiate Tanner’s character development. Tanner suspects Louise of being the thief that pulled off the 1975 heist but still trusts her enough to be her getaway driver. Part of Tanner clearly yearns for the adventure of running away, shaking loose her feelings of being stuck at home with no direction. Though she starts the journey off anxious about the legal ramifications of their escape, by the time they reach St. Louis, she is comfortable and excited enough to Insist on stopping at the St. Louis Arch. The road movie genre offers Oakley a structural model through which to portray Tanner’s new desire for the Pursuit of Adventure.
The symbol of the gun returns in this section. Tanner is even more afraid of the gun when she sees it in person and demands that Louise unload it and store the ammo separately, attempting to have some control over the situation, which is indicative of Tanner’s attempts to obtain power over her own life. This control is short-lived. Louise uses Tanner’s fear of the gun to manipulate her out of the line for the St. Louis Arch, demonstrating that Tanner’s journey toward gaining power over her circumstances is not yet complete.
The arch also opens the door for Tanner to see Louise’s emotional vulnerability. Though the vulnerability caused by her hip injury and her age are clear to Tanner, this is the first moment that Tanner sees Louise actually afraid of something. This is the first major step forward in their friendship and their movement toward true emotional intimacy and understanding. Though Tanner accuses Louise of being afraid and Louise does not share her fear willingly, she does joke, making fun of Tanner for her fear of the unloaded gun. Though the humor deflects from the deeper emotional core, it is still a step forward.
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