91 pages • 3 hours read
Goodbye Days
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Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Chapter 1 introduces 17-year-old Carver Briggs, the book’s protagonist and narrator. Carver is at the funeral of one of his best friends, Blake Lloyd. Blake was killed in a car accident along with two other teenage boys, Thurgood Marshall “Mars” Edwards and Eli Bauer. These were Carver’s three best friends.
Carver feels responsible for the boys’ deaths because Mars, who was driving, was returning a text from Carver when they crashed. Carver distinctly recalls the text he wrote to Mars: “Where are you guys? Text me back” (2). Mars was responding when he slammed into a stopped semi-trailer truck on the highway at nearly 70 miles per hour.
Carver firmly believes he is responsible for the boys’ deaths. He’s also convinced he’s not the only person who feels this way. He reflects on the dead boys’ surviving family members and wonders what each one would say if asked whether they thought he was responsible. Blake’s grandmother, Nana Betsy, would say no. She already told Carver, “You are not responsible for this, Carver Briggs. God knows it and so do I” (1). Eli’s parents, Dr. Pierce Bauer and Dr. Melissa Rubin-Bauer, would say “maybe.” Eli’s twin sister, Adair Bauer, would say “definitely.” Mars’s parents, Judge Frederick Edwards and his ex-wife, Cynthia Edwards, would say “probably.”
Chapter 2 Summary
Still waiting for Blake’s funeral to start, Carver reflects on the friends he’s lost. All four boys were preparing to start their senior years at Nashville Arts Academy. Eli was planning to attend Berklee College of Music to study guitar. Blake was planning to move to Los Angeles to pursue comedy and screenwriting. Mars was going to pursue his dream of working as a comic book illustrator. Carver is supposed to go to Sewanee or Emory to study creative writing. The four boys called themselves Sauce Crew.
Carver is sitting by himself when Jesmyn Holder, a girl who was dating Eli before he died, approaches him and asks if she can sit with him. Jesmyn is a pianist who will likewise attend Nashville Arts Academy in the fall. Carver internally muses on what to call her: “Eli’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend? They never broke up” (6). Jesmyn asks Carver why he isn’t with her parents, and he tells here they are in Italy celebrating their wedding anniversary and couldn’t make it home in time.
Jesmyn sits with Carver throughout the funeral. Carver watches the event while continuing to reflect on the sudden deaths of his friends. He seems to be in shock: “[Texting] is just something we do. It’s not supposed to kill your three best friends” (10). The funeral ends, and Carver, who is a pallbearer, helps to carry Blake’s casket to the hearse. Jesmyn offers to drive him to the cemetery where Blake will be buried.
Chapter 3 Summary
Chapter 3 consists primarily of Carver having a flashback. He reflects on how Sauce Crew got their moniker. The boys were eating at McDonald’s, making jokes and being rowdy like normal teenage boys. Eli and Mars threw a bunch of sauce packets at Blake while Carver filmed. The packets exploded, leaving sauce all over Blake. That’s how they came up with the name “Sauce Crew.”
The narrative returns to the present. Carver is watching Blake’s burial: “I watch them lower the third member of Sauce Crew into the ground. I am Sauce Crew now” (19).
Chapter 4 Summary
Jesmyn drives Carver back to the funeral home after the burial. They exchange numbers, and doing so gives Carver some hope. He’s dreading starting school without Sauce Crew: “It’s dawning on me how lonely this school year will be. Sauce Crew was so tight” (22). On top of it, Adair seems to have a vendetta against him, giving him evil looks and openly blaming him for Eli’s death, to the extent that other people ostracize him.
In the parking lot, Carver is approached by a reporter, Darren Coughlin of the Tennessean. He asks Carver if he might know what caused the accident and if he was texting Mars at the time. Darren then asks if Carver is aware of any criminal investigation into the accident. Carver says no.
Carver drives to Blake’s house, where Nana Betsy is hosting a reception after the funeral. On the drive, he has a flashback to Blake pulling one of his favorite pranks. Blake was a “minor YouTube celebrity” who was best known for his public farting pranks (26). Carver emphasizes that Blake viewed his pranks as performance art: “He was challenging people, forcing them to question the artificial barriers we construct between ourselves and our bodies” (27).
Carver arrives at Nana Betsy’s. She calls Carver “Blade,” the nickname Sauce Crew used for him. Nana Betsy raised Blake. His birthmother, Nana Betsy’s daughter Mitzi, struggles with addiction. Nana Betsy isn’t even sure where she is. Blake’s mother doesn’t yet know about his death.
Chapter 5 Summary
Carver returns home. His older sister, Georgia, is there to comfort him. He takes a shower and retreats to his bedroom, where he starts thinking about heaven and hell, and wondering about life after death. Thinking of his friends, he reflects: “What if there’s a hell? A place of eternal torment and punishment? What if they’re there? Burning. Screaming. In agony. What if I’m going there when I die for killing my friends?” (35).
In the midst of these heavy thoughts, he has a panic attack. Georgia finds him on his bedroom floor, dizzy and gasping for air, and takes him to the emergency room. Driving back home, Georgia urges Carver to consider therapy. He doesn’t talk to their parents about personal issues, and Georgia is leaving for college in a few weeks, so she won’t be around. Georgia reveals she struggled with depression and an eating disorder in the past and saw a therapist named Dr. Mendez. She suggests Carver meet him.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
Goodbye Days starts in the wake of a major event—the deaths of the three teenage boys Blake, Eli, and Mars. The remainder of the book will revolve around these deaths and the impact they have on Carver, the dead boys’ families and friends, and the broader Nashville community. The pacing of the first five chapters is notable in that they cover a brief span of time, all taking place in a single afternoon. Although this pace might seem slow, Carver’s inner monologue gives the narrative momentum.
Carver is the book’s protagonist and main character, and his first-person point of view is firmly established from the narrative’s start. Much of the story will be told via Carver’s internal monologues, as exemplified in Chapter 2. These internal monologues not only reveal Carver’s emotional development but also depict memories of the dead boys. This approach allows the reader to get to know the boys intimately through Carver’s eyes—even though they’re all deceased.
The intertwined themes of grief and guilt, central to the work, are immediately apparent in Carver’s thoughts: “Am I certain that it was my text message that set into motion the chain of events that culminated in my friends’ deaths? No. But I’m sure enough” (3). Carver’s subsequent panic attack, which comes on as he’s wondering if his friends are in hell, seems to be a physical manifestation of his survivor’s guilt.
Such musings also speak to another central theme of Goodbye Days: the ripple effect. Sometimes conflated with the “butterfly effect,” this is basically a way of looking at the universe that ascribes a cause to every small act. There’s a saying that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world will cause a windstorm in another part of the world. Carver seems to think of himself as that small butterfly, innocently flapping its wings—a small act that causes major destruction. He notes that texting is “just something we do” and seems to be in shock that this small act had such awful repercussions (10).
From Carver’s monologue, it’s also apparent that he’s deeply lonely. His solitary state is emphasized by the visual imagery of him watching Blake, the last of Sauce Crew to be buried, being lowered into the ground and his conclusion that “I am Sauce Crew now” (19). Given that a “crew” is meant to be multiple people, it’s a sad thought.
Carver’s solitary state is also emphasized by the fact that he’s alone at the funeral. His parents are in Italy, his sister has to work, and his friends’ families appear to blame him, in varying degrees, for the accident. The one person who breaks Carver’s barrier of solitude at the funeral is Jesmyn Holder, the girl who was dating Eli before his death. Her character is thus immediately introduced as a sort of savior—a role she will uphold throughout the narrative—providing companionship and comfort to Carver, who otherwise feels largely alone in the world.
The appearance of the journalist, Darren Coughlin, foreshadows the criminal investigation into the accident to come. These criminal proceedings, which threaten to actually put Carver on trial for his friends’ deaths, will become symbolic of Carver’s guilt. The teenaged boy will not only have to grapple with his inner emotional guilt; he will also face the possibility of being labeled guilty in a court of law.
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