50 pages • 1 hour read
Magic Hour: A Novel
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Chapters 17-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary
Ellie and Julia sit on the porch together at night. Julia says Alice’s speech patterns are of a two-year-old rather than a six-year-old. She believes this is because she grew up in a safe environment for the first two years of her life, before her traumatic event, and that she has not verbally developed past that age. To help Alice, they must make sure that she feels safe. Hopefully, she will increase her vocabulary and be able to tell them about what happened to her.
Julia realizes that she needs to remember that her work helps people; she had trouble remembering that after what happened to Amber. Julia decides to go to Max’s house to tell him about her success. When she gets there, he is in the hot tub, and he invites her in. She strips down to her underwear and joins him. Julia asks why he moved to Rain Valley, and he tells her that he had personal issues in Los Angeles and needed a change of scenery. Julia tells him that Alice spoke for the first time that day, and Max tells her that he knew she could do it. He kisses her, but she pulls away from him and leaves.
When Julia gets back home, Alice follows her through the house. She finally says Julia’s name, but she only calls herself “girl” when Julia tries to get her to say her own name.
Max goes rock climbing to forget about Julia. A boulder falls and almost kills him, but he outmaneuvers it. He realizes that he is trying to escape Julia’s “all or nothing” offer of love (242).
Chapter 18 Summary
After a few weeks, Alice makes progress with speaking and expressing her emotions. Alice loves to have Julia read to her, and she feels drawn to the story of The Velveteen Rabbit.
On Thanksgiving, Julia and Ellie prepare food for their friends. Julia invites Max, and Ellie invites Cal and his daughters. Ellie connects with Alice by singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” to her, which Alice loves. Max feels nervous about Thanksgiving, so he calls his ex-wife, Susan. She tells him that he should go to the dinner and that he needs to let go of the past.
Chapter 19 Summary
In the winter, Ellie tells Cal that she feels lonely because although she enjoys spending time with Alice, she has always wanted children of her own. She does not think it will happen anymore. Cal encourages her not to give up, but Ellie laughs his advice off because he is married. He tells her that Lisa left him; she fell in love with someone else and does not even visit their daughters anymore. Ellie gets upset at Cal for not telling her, but Cal says that she never asks about his life. After Cal leaves, Ellie wonders if she is selfish. She remembers that her father used to say that they were the same, and she wonders if that is a good thing. Ellie goes to Cal’s house and apologizes for her self-centeredness.
Later in the month, Ellie buys a Christmas tree, and Alice decorates it. Ellie and Julia talk about Christmas with their parents. Ellie remembers spending time with her dad during Christmas, but for the first time, she sees things from Julia’s perspective and realizes that she must have felt left out. She tells Julia about her fight with Cal, and Julia tells Ellie that Cal has been in love with her since they were teenagers. Once Ellie became popular at school, she never paid attention to him. Julia tells her that she is like their father because people cannot help loving her. Ellie apologizes to Julia for throwing her at the media when she was not ready. She knows that she was just thinking about her career and not about Julia’s feelings. Julia reveals that she wants to adopt Alice, and Ellie promises to do everything she can to help her.
The next day, Julia takes Alice to the car, puts her in the car seat, and drives into town. Alice struggles in the car seat, and Julia realizes that the seatbelt reminds her of her captivity. She takes Alice to the police station, where Ellie is throwing a small party. Afterward, Julia and Ellie take Alice for a walk to look at the Christmas lights. The church doors open after a night service, and a flood of people burst out. Before Julia can grab her hand, Alice is gone.
Chapter 20 Summary
Alice sees strangers around her and feels scared and abandoned, so she decides to run away. She climbs a tree to get away from the strangers.
Julia rushes through the crowd, looking for Alice. She sings “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” hoping that she can hear her. She hears a whistle of the same tune and follows it to the tree. Julia promises that she will not leave her, and Alice rushes down the tree into Julia’s arms.
On Christmas, Max goes to Ellie’s house to see Julia, and Ellie goes to Cal’s house. Cal’s daughters answer the door but look disappointed when they see her. Cal tells her that Lisa promised she would come for Christmas, but she has not even called. Ellie decides to take Cal and the girls to the bowling alley, where Ellie and Cal went as kids. Cal thanks Ellie for her support during his divorce.
Chapter 21 Summary
In January, a woman from DSHS comes to interview Julia about adopting Alice. After she leaves, Ellie tells Julia that once her application goes through, Alice’s parents will have 60 days to come forward before Alice is officially Julia’s daughter. When Ellie gets to the station, Peanut tells her that there is a man waiting in her office. He introduces himself as George Azelle and shows Ellie a picture of Alice; he is there to pick up his daughter.
Julia takes Alice to the diner. When they get there, everyone stares at Alice, but Julia guides her to a booth. Max comes into the diner, and Julia invites him to sit with them. After they eat, Max goes with them to the animal shelter. When Alice gets out of the car, she hears her wolf pup howling and runs to the cages. The pup has grown significantly and pushes against the fence, trying to get to Alice. Julia tells the attendant that he can open the gate, and Alice and the wolf reunite. Alice hugs the wolf and plays with him in the snow. Suddenly, Ellie pulls up in her police cruiser and tells Julia that Alice’s father has appeared at the police station.
Max stays with Alice at Ellie’s house until they return. Alice brings Max a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit and asks him to read to her. Max reads but has a flashback of reading to his son and he cries. Alice comforts him, and he continues reading to her.
Chapters 17-21 Analysis
As Cal and Ellie’s relationship develops, Cal helps Ellie see her own selfishness. Although Ellie’s confidence draws people to her, she realizes that she uses people to her advantage without even realizing it. Ellie’s father acted the same way, and since Ellie was able to mimic his behavior, she earned preferential treatment from him. Ellie now realizes that this is why she never understood why Julia felt neglected by him. Once Ellie learns how to see situations from other people’s perspectives, she understands how her behavior has kept her from understanding how her actions affect others. This moment marks a major point in Ellie’s character development because she no longer puts her career before Julia, Alice, or Cal. No longer frozen in a behavior pattern from her adolescence, Ellie becomes open to the possibility of a relationship with Cal, someone whom she truly cares about and who has always loved her. Ellie’s apologies to Julia and Cal show a marked difference between Ellie and her father, putting her on the path to healing and a life where she has fulfilling relationships with the people she cares about.
In this section, Alice’s journey through Trauma and Recovery also progresses. Hannah highlights Alice’s progression through allusions to the children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit. This story mirrors Alice’s path because she realizes that as she loves Julia and Ellie, she will become a “real child,” much like the toy velveteen rabbit becomes a real rabbit in the story. However, this vulnerability also opens her up to heartbreak. Like Alice, Max’s character development also shows the ways that he is ready to open himself up to other people again. As he reads The Velveteen Rabbit to Alice at the end of the section, he cries because of how this moment reminds him of his son. The book has slowly been revealing more details about Max’s trauma, and the references to a son here nearly reveal the entire picture. Alice comforts him like she comforted Julia earlier, showing that she accepts Max into her community. This interaction foreshadows Max’s role at the end of the novel, as he eventually becomes her father. Max realizes that the only way that he will heal is by loving other people, such as Alice and Julia, even if it means that he may get hurt again.
Although Alice makes strides toward normalcy, scenes from these chapters reveal how her trauma will follow her for the rest of her life. This shows how healing isn’t linear, but setbacks can be temporary. One example can be seen in her experience with the car seat. Although Julia knows that getting Alice into the car will upset her because she has never done it before, it is not until Alice cries about the seatbelt trapping her that Julia realizes that it reminds her of being bound. This moment, along with Alice’s decision to run away from the crowd up a tree for protection, shows that Alice’s trauma is not something that she can easily move on from. Instead, it will follow her for the rest of her life and may emerge at surprising moments. This realization causes Julia to decide to adopt Alice because Alice’s mental health might deteriorate if she feels abandoned again. Julia worries that if she leaves Alice, then she will regress into her old coping mechanisms.
Hannah heightens the suspense at this moment through a late-book plot twist, introducing George as Alice’s father. George is a mysterious figure, someone whose name Ellie recognizes, but Hannah withholds details about him until Chapter 22. Nonetheless, George’s return threatens to disrupt the characters’ development: Ellie realizes that she must choose between Julia and her career, Julia realizes that George could take Alice away from her, and Alice might regress if the stability Julia offers is taken away.
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By Kristin Hannah
