Nineteen Minutes: Part 1, Chapter 1: March 6, 2007 Summary & Analysis

Part One opens with the Chinese proverb, “If we don’t change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.” Following this is a handwritten note in which the writer says that they “hope to be dead” by the time what they are writing is read. The writer claims that the reader will cry at their funeral, but it is unclear whether either of them will actually miss the other.   

The narrator lists all the things that can be done in nineteen minutes, from the mundane (mowing the lawn, getting pizza delivered) to the sinister (exiting the world and getting revenge). Alex Cormier is running late to her job as superior court judge, a position she has held for just over a month. At 40, she is the youngest judge in New Hampshire. She goes into the kitchen where her daughter, Josie, is looking at a textbook. Alex scolds her for drinking coffee, and Josie replies by scolding Alex for still smoking cigarettes, something she’s been trying to keep quiet.

Josie is “a pretty, popular, straight-A student” who, at least on the outside, seems to be the fulfilment of a parent’s hopes and expectations. However, ever since Josie started high school, the “tunnel of communication” between her and Alex has closed. Concerned that Josie hasn’t eaten breakfast, Alex starts cooking some eggs and bacon, even though she is not a very skilled chef. Josie takes over, and Alex asks her to promise that she will eat all of it. Josie promises, and Alex leaves. As soon as her mother is gone, Josie scrapes everything from the skillet straight into the trash. 

Josie often feels as if her life is a room without doors or windows. Everyone is jealous of her for being in the room, but that doesn’t change the fact that Josie can’t get out. Getting out of the shower, she looks in the mirror and wishes she could see what other people do. She knows that, on the outside, she looks the part of a popular girl, and she enjoys feeling other people’s eyes on her. Inside, though, she feels like “a fake who had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be real.” She can’t talk about these feelings with any of the other popular kids at Sterling High, because doing so would immediately jeopardize her social position.

Josie also can’t talk to Alex, because Alex has the same problem of having to preserve a perfect public image. Just before leaving her room for school, Josie checks on a Ziploc bag of Ambien that she has carefully saved up and taped underneath her nightstand. She doesn’t have a specific plan to kill herself, but when the time comes, she wants to be prepared. Down in the kitchen, she finds her boyfriend Matt waiting for her, having let himself in. Josie assures him that she wanted to see him last night, but she needed to study. He embraces her, telling her, “I wouldn’t act as crazy if I didn’t love you so much.” In that moment, Josie feels lucky and content.

Patrick Ducharme is the only detective on the Sterling police force. One of the patrol officers remarks on the nail polish Patrick is wearing, which his four-year-old goddaughter painted on him. Patrick goes to check his email. As a small-town detective, he has an incredibly wide range of tasks. He is always assured that his work is meaningful when he encounters victims in need of help, yet he remains troubled that he is a detective who doesn’t “detect anything.”

It is March, the first warm day of spring. Josie sits in the Sterling High parking lot and thinks about the fact that soon, she will be a senior. Matt suggests they ditch school, but Josie points out this would jeopardize his position on the hockey team. Brady Pryce, a football player, and his girlfriend Haley Weaver walk past and wish Matt luck on his hockey game that day. Mr. McCabe, their math teacher, also walks past, and when Matt asks how he did on the recent test, Mr. McCabe says it’s lucky Matt has “other talents to fall back on.”

Alex rushes into the courthouse, past a man who shouts at her flirtatiously, and she quickly dons her robe before briefly reviewing the docket. As she walks into the courtroom, all eyes watch her closely. The first defendant is called, and Alex notices that it’s the same man who shouted at her earlier. She decides to take it in stride and makes a joke about it. Meanwhile, Lacy Houghton, who is a midwife, is helping a woman through her sixteenth hour of labor. The mother pushes her new baby out, and Lacy hands her the baby to hold. Lacy thinks newborn babies have faces “full of divinity,” but this perfect innocence never lasts long. 

Peter, Lacy’s son, is waking up. Lacy has left him a bowl of cereal and a note wishing him a good day at school like she always does. As soon as he gets out of bed, Peter gets on the computer and sees something on the screen that he’d hoped he’d never see again. He tries to exit, but it is too late.

Everyone in Sterling knows each other. In some ways this is nice, because it makes the community like a family; however, it also means that no one there can escape the past. Josie is standing in the cafeteria next to Courtney Ignatio, “the alpha female of Sterling High,” whose tray features only a bottle of water and a banana. Josie observes the different groups in the cafeteria: the geeks, the art freaks, the skanks, the druggies, and the misfits. Josie’s own group all dress in the same preppy style, and Josie fits in perfectly. Her outward appearance expertly conceals her inner confusion. 

The girls at Josie’s table discuss a freshman who was just sent to rehab for doing cocaine. Her dealer is the leader of the Sterling High Bible study club. Matt greets Josie, and on seeing the French fries on her tray asks if she’s really going to eat them. Matt hands some of Josie’s fries to another boy, Drew, then kisses Josie and says, “Let’s get out of here.”

In gym class, two nerdy freshmen, Michael Beach and Justin Friedman, sit on the sidelines, fantasizing that an unexpected event will get them out of class. Meanwhile, Lacy wanders around her empty house. When her two boys were young, her husband, Lewis, an economist of happiness, asked what would make Lacy happy and she replied that she dreamed of being in her own empty house with nothing to do. Lacy passes Peter’s room and makes his bed, something he refuses to do himself.

Zoe Patterson sits in math class while Mr. McCabe makes jokes. She is supposed to meet her mom outside the school at 10am, and as she walks out, she thinks about the mechanics of kissing a guy without hurting him with her braces. Just as she sees her mom’s car in the distance, she hears an explosion. 

Patrick sits in his car, waiting to bring a vial of cocaine that he seized from the Bible study dealer to be tested, when he hears reports on his radio of shots being fired at Sterling High. The dispatcher announces, “Signal 1000,” which means every available officer must head to the high school immediately. When Patrick arrives there, he is greeted by a scene of total chaos. He realizes that waiting for the SWAT team to arrive will result in far more kids being killed, and thus, ignoring instructions, he heads straight into the school. Running through the school, he tries to ask the frantic, crying teenagers around him who the shooter is, and how many there are. A boy replies, “It’s a kid… he’s shooting everyone.”

Patrick runs through the school. He can see blood, smell urine, and hear gunshots in the distance. He dashes into the gymnasium, where there are bodies lying on the floor. Following the sound of another shot, Patrick runs into the locker room, where he sees two bodies on the floor and a thin boy with glasses. He asks the boy where the shooter is, but the boy then pulls out a pistol and points it at his own head. Patrick raises his gun and demands that the boy drop the pistol, and he does so. Patrick asks if there are other shooters, and the boy says it’s just him.

As other officers take the boy away, Patrick looks at the two bodies lying on the floor. One is a boy wearing a hockey jersey; the other is a girl bleeding from the head. Weakly, the girl asks Patrick to help her, and he immediately does so. She tells him her name is Josie, then asks what happened. Patrick picks her up and carries her out of the school.