The Plot Against America: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

The narrative returns to the evening of Monday, October 12th, 1942—the day of the riots that have broken out across the country following the British intelligence report about Lindbergh fleeing to Germany. It is clear to the Roths, given the closed Canadian border, that they have made a “grave mistake” in failing to leave in time—things in the house are tense. Fear is everywhere and, especially in the Roth household (given Bengelsdorf’s rise to prominence in the news), life has taken on a strange, eerie feeling. The phone rings at 10 o’clock at night—it is Seldon Wishnow on the other end, sobbing. He declares that his mother is not home from work in Louisville and that he hasn’t eaten dinner.

Seldon weeps to Bess, telling her that his mother must be dead—if she were alive, she would have called. Bess tries to calm Seldon by telling him he’s being hysterical. She assures him something ordinary must have come up. Seldon, however, insists he has been orphaned. Philip reveals that Seldon would later turn out to be right—Mrs. Wishnow has been killed in the Louisville riots, though no one will know until her remains are found in the smoldering husk of her car the following day.

Bess tells Seldon to eat something in order to calm down. She urges Seldon to put the phone down, take a look in the refrigerator, and tell her what’s inside. He does so—there is not much to eat. Philip, Sandy, and Herman have gathered in the kitchen—Bess asks Sandy how far the Mawhinneys are from Danville. He tells her they live about 20 minutes away. She tells Sandy to fetch their phone number, and he does. Bess tells Seldon to make himself some toast and cereal and eat breakfast. Seldon is confused because it is nighttime. Bess tells Seldon to eat—she says that if he does so, Philip will call him back in half an hour.

Bess hangs up and calls the Mawhinneys. She apologizes for calling so late, introduces herself, and explains the situation. She asks if the Mawhinneys will help her with a little boy who’s home alone in Danville. The Mawhinneys agree to go to Danville, pick Seldon up, and bring him home. Philip is amazed by his mother’s quickness and efficiency in the face of such terror and grief. Even after everything the Roths have been through lately, from fistfights to shootouts, Philip has not stopped to consider the toll that Lindbergh’s presidency has taken on their family.

Bess calls Seldon back and instructs him to pack up his toothbrush, pajamas, and a change of clothes, dress himself warmly, and wait for the Mawhinneys to come pick him up. Seldon cries out that his mother must really be dead. Bess assures Seldon that Mrs. Wishnow is fine and will be there to pick him up at the Mawhinneys’ the next morning. Bess stays on the phone with Seldon as he makes the necessary preparations, grabs a housekey, and waits for the Mawhinneys. As Seldon rushes out the door at the honk of the truck, he forgets to hang up the phone, but it doesn’t matter—Seldon is never to set foot in the Danville house again.

All Philip can think of that night—and in the days to follow, as Herman and Sandy drive out to Kentucky to scoop up Seldon and bring him home to live with them—is that he is responsible for Mrs. Wishnow’s death and Seldon’s troubles.

On Thursday, October 15th, after Herman and Sandy have departed for Kentucky, the phone rings—it is Aunt Evelyn, announcing Rabbi Bengelsdorf’s arrest. That afternoon, Evelyn shows up at the Roths’ house looking and sounding crazed. She has no idea where Lionel is being held, and she insists the FBI is after her, too, because she “know[s] the truth.” She begs her sister to hide her. Bess tells Evelyn to go to the von Ribbentrops’ instead, turning her away and ordering her to leave. Evelyn turns to Philip and begs him to take pity on her, but Bess slams the door shut in her face. Then, Bess hugs Philip tight and tells him that Evelyn is no longer their concern.

Bess begins crying—she regrets having let Sandy and Herman go off into Lindbergh’s increasingly dangerous America, and she now regrets having turned Evelyn away as well. Philip, young as he is, realizes that one can never do something right without doing something wrong.

That evening, emergency meetings to be presided over by members of the Committee of Concerned Jewish Citizens are called throughout Newark. The police are mobilized throughout the neighborhood for its citizens’ protection—last night, in a neighboring town, several Jewish businesses were looted. While Bess goes out to a meeting, Joey Cucuzza comes upstairs to keep Philip company. That evening, as mounted police forces clip-clop up and down the streets, Philip is both comforted and disturbed by the presence of the horses.

Joey wants Philip to play with his hearing aid. Philip puts it on but worries that he’ll go deaf and have to go work at the nearby New Jersey Pretzel Factory where, rumor has it, deaf children are employed as pretzel-benders. Philip says he’s not in the mood to play considering everything that’s going on outside—but Joey, of course, has no true sense of the weight of what is going on. He continues messing with Philip, dialing the earpiece up and down and distressing Philip with the noises it makes. Philip wishes he could run away again, protected by the horses, and go off to make pretzels away from it all. 

Joey tells Philip about a Jewish orphan runaway who drank the blood of one of the horses on the orphanage property—Jews, Joey says, all drink blood. Philip insists that Jews don’t drink blood, and that saying they do is crazy. Soon after, Joey leaves. Philip locks the door behind him and begins listening to the radio, thinking all the time about running away. At last, he decides to mount yet another escape from home. He plans to adopt a fake identity (and an Irish name), pretend to be deaf, and go to work at the pretzel factory.

As Philip descends the stairs to the cellar to retrieve his suitcase, he finds himself fearing that the ghost of Mr. Wishnow is downstairs. Aloud, he tells the “ghost” that he is sorry for his part in sending Seldon away. From the darkness, a woman’s voice replies that she knows the truth—it is Aunt Evelyn, and as she emerges from the darkness, she begs Philip to hide her from the FBI once more.

Philip brings Aunt Evelyn upstairs, where he fixes her some milk and bread. Evelyn eats hungrily and then begins telling Philip that the FBI are after her and have called out the mounted police to find her. Philip tells her the mounted police are in the neighborhood due to the anti-Semitic violence, but Evelyn insists that she’s the one they want. Philip realize that Evelyn has gone mad—or perhaps she has been for a long time. Evelyn asks for some more bread and a pear, and she asks if Philip will bring her food and water as she hides out down in the cellar.

Bess returns home, anxious to hear from Philip whether Herman or Sandy has called to say they’ve gotten safely to Kentucky. She’s upset when Philip has no news for her, and she tells Philip that he won’t be going to school tomorrow. Philip asks why, and Bess tell him that there may be a war with Canada. Philip continues pressing his mother for answers, but she has none—all they can do, she says, is sit and wait. Philip heads to bed, consumed by thoughts of war; of what Aunt Evelyn, down in the cellar, will be using as a toilet; and of how his father and brother are faring on their trip out west.

Feeling that the only thing he can control is helping Evelyn, Philip fetches a bedpan from the bathroom to bring into the cellar for her—but his mother confronts him on the stairs. Hearing footsteps and arguing, the Cucuzzas again fear the worst and come running—but soon, everything quiets down, and Bess sends Philip to sleep in her room while she and Evelyn take over the boys’ room.

Sandy and Herman’s 1,500-mile trip out west is the “adventure of Sandy’s lifetime.” Herman carries Mr. Cucuzza’s pistol in the glovebox the whole time, stopping for gas only once and, upon arriving at the Mawhinneys’, staying for only five hours before turning right back around. Herman’s stitches from his fight with Alvin are infected, and Seldon is sick and feverish in the backseat. The trip back takes three times as long as the trip out because of how frequently Seldon needs to stop to vomit and how often the car breaks down.

Calling a tow truck—and seeking medical help for Seldon—is fraught business, as Herman and Sandy are terrified that the country folks they encounter on the backroads of West Virginia will realize they are Jewish and harm them. Instead, when they at last find a country clinic, the doctor treats them gently and kindly, giving Seldon fluids and draining the pus from Herman’s face. By the time the three of them arrive back in Newark, Herman is ill with pneumonia and must be hospitalized. In spite of it all, Philip knows there is nothing that could have stopped his father from rescuing Seldon—Herman is a “rescuer,” particularly of orphans. Without one’s parents, Herman knows, one is “rootless” and “vulnerable.”

While Herman is being fixed up by the country doctor in Appalachia, Sandy begins sketching one of the other patients at the clinic—a blonde 13-year-old girl. When Herman comes out of the office and sees what Sandy is doing, he drags him from the clinic and reprimands him, reminding Sandy of the case of Leo Frank. Frank was a Jew who was lynched in Georgia in 1913 after he was suspected of killing a young Gentile worker in his pencil factory named Mary Phagan. His body was displayed as a warning to “Jewish libertines” in the South to stay away from Gentile women. The Frank case, Philip surmises, is only one small part of the long, brutal history which made Herman and Sandy’s journey so terrifying—but of course, Philip writes, “it all goes further back than that.”

After returning from Kentucky, Seldon comes to live with the Roths. Sandy moves into the front room and Seldon takes over the bed next to Philip’s, the one previously occupied by Alvin and Aunt Evelyn. This time, there is no stump for Philip to care for—Seldon himself is the stump. Until Seldon is taken to live with his aunt in Brooklyn many months later, Philip is Seldon’s “prosthesis.”