An Abundance of Katherines: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Back in Starnes’s un-air-conditioned living room, Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey interview him. He says he was born in “the country” (south-central Tennessee) and has stayed in the area his entire life. Lindsey, who speaks in a thick accent around Starnes, asks him to tell them about the factory. He recalls how he has worked there for sixty years, longer than anyone, and how he has known Lindsey’s family for many generations. He calls Lindsey’s father, Alex, a “sumbitch.”

It is now very hot, and Colin reflects that this is a hard way to make a hundred dollars. Starnes offers everyone some sweet tea. Colin thinks that the tea is “everything he’d hoped coffee would be.” He drinks a lot of it as he listens to Starnes talk about how Dr. Dinzanfar, Lindsey’s great-grandfather, made sure never to lay off more than one person per family even during the Depression. Starnes also explains that Gutshot got its name because it was a hotbed of boxing back when prizefighting was illegal. To get around the laws, boxers could not hit above or below the belt—hence the name “Gutshot.”

Starnes continues talking about his marriage and about avoiding the draft by shooting off two of his toes. Colin reflects that Starnes never seems to have heard of “transitions.” He knows he is not a good storyteller either, but at least he has heard of transitions, he thinks. Still, Colin begins to enjoy listening to Starnes and looking at his old pictures. He determines that he will also have picture of his fiftieth wedding anniversary with Katherine XIX and that he will also leave behind something more. Colin loses track of them time until Lindsey stands up to leave, asking Starnes if he wants Hollis to get him an air conditioner. He says she has already done well by him. Colin shakes Starnes’s hand on the way out.

In the Hearse, Lindsey insists that Hassan and Colin drop her off at the store to see The Other Colin and then make themselves scarce so that she can tell Hollis later that they were driving around all afternoon. She teases Colin that it’s because she finds his presence unbearable. He thinks she is kidding but nonetheless fails to conceal that he is hurt. Hassan tells Lindsey that usually when someone calls Colin unbearable, “it’s the last words of a Katherine.” Colin responds, “Dingleberries.”

After dropping off Lindsey, Colin and Hassan spend some time eating unappetizing burgers and fries at Hardee’s. Colin reads more Byron until Hassan convinces him that they should stop by the Gutshot General Store, where Lindsey is with TOC. They show up at the store nearly an hour early. They find Lindsey sitting on TOC’s lap. They chat for a moment, and the conversation quickly turns to TOC threatening that if either Colin or Hassan touches Lindsey while they are living with her, “I’ll kill you.”

Lindsey gives Colin and Hassan TOC’s keys so that they can wait for her in his air-conditioned truck. On the way out to the truck, Colin and Hassan hear TOC ask if the genius is “the fat one or the skinny one.” Hassan comments on TOC’s muscular build and tells Colin that “the Fat One’s gonna take a piss in the field.” Colin responds that “The Skinny One” will be in the truck.

When Hassan returns, he complains about Lindsey’s bubbly demeanor around TOC. Colin asks if Hassan has a crush on her, and Hassan says that dating Lindsey would be haram (forbidden by Islam). “Also, she’s got a big nose,” he says. Colin accuses Hassan of moral relativism because he does not seem to have a problem doing some things that are haram. Hassan insists that “I don’t think God gives a shit if we have a dog or if a woman wears shorts. I think He gives a shit about whether you’re a good person.” Colin begins thinking about Katherine XIX again, who works every summer at a camp for disabled kids. He wants to call her, but Hassan stops him. Colin says he wants to go home “to Lindsey’s.” Hassan fakes a “fat kid asthma attack” to interrupt Lindsey’s conversation with TOC so they can go back to Hollis’s house.

They eat dinner in the backyard, which Colin admires for its size. Gutshot has a wide-open feel that he likes. After dinner, he looks at his phone for any missed calls from Katherine XIX and ends up calling his parents. On the phone, he tells his father the truth about staying with Hollis. His father worries that he is too trusting. Colin protests that he survived seventeen years in Chicago, but his father cuts him off by handing the phone to Colin’s mother. At her prompting, Colin tells her he is marginally happier than when he left. She asks to speak to Hollis. After this conversation, Colin’s parents decide he can stay. Colin thinks it is because his mother always secretly wanted him to rebel a little like a “normal” kid. His father, he thinks, is probably just beginning to see the unlikelihood that Colin will every transcend normality.

Off the phone, Colin walks past Hassan’s room and hears Lindsey and Hassan talking about him. Lindsey wants to know, “How does he do it?” and Hassan says that Colin remembers everything because he finds everything fascinating. Colin is flattered by how Hassan and Lindsey seem to be impressed by his brain, but he also feels the explanation is reductive because for him, his intelligence is more about making connections among seemingly unrelated things. He listens more and hears Hassan explaining that Colin works incredibly hard at any task he begins. The tasks he enumerates make Colin reflect that he has never done anything but rearrange letters, memorize already-known facts, fall in love with “the same nine letters over and over again,” and retype all of The Catcher in the Rye. He feels more than ever that the Theorem is his only hope for originality.

Colin walks into the room, and Hassan and Lindsey change the subject. Colin works on the Theorem while they talk. At midnight, Colin looks up to find that Hassan has left, and Lindsey is looking over his shoulder. She mentions his anagramming talent and grabs his arm for a moment. Colin notices her nail polish. She remarks that, “you’re a genius at making words out of other words, but you can’t make new words out a thin air.” Colin realizes that this is “exactly it.” He tells Lindsey that he just wants to do or be something that matters. Lindsey lies down next to him and eventually says that they must be opposites because from her perspective, people who “matter,” (i.e. celebrities), seem more likely to have their lives shot down. She would prefer to stay in Gutshot, unimportant but happy. Lindsey, Colin reflects, seems like a bit of a wimp.

Lindsey interrupts Colin’s thoughts by beginning to teach him about storytelling. His stories, she tells him, need plots with beginnings, middles, and ends, and he can’t get away with rambling.  He also needs a strong moral or theme as well as romance and adventure. She suggests that the story about the lion at the zoo might feature a girl who saves him from the lion when she notices how big his penis is. Colin puts his hand on Lindsey’s and notices the spot where she has bitten her thumb. He insists that his Theorem will have a beginning, middle, and end. Lindsey says there is no romance in geometry, and Colin tells her, “Just you wait.”

In a section called “The Beginning (of the Middle),” Colin recalls how his pattern dating Katherines started. He was not especially hung up on Katherine I, but he saw her periodically because her father was his tutor. At first his dating other Katherines seemed like a coincidence, but then it became a monotonous pattern. They always dumped him because, as he sees it, he didn’t matter enough. He thinks about how the Romans punished St. Apollonia by crushing each of her teeth, one by one. He compares his relationship history to this punishment. “After a while,” he thinks, “having each tooth individually destroyed probably gets repetitive, even dull. But it never stops hurting.”