Echo

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2015

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Part 4, Chapter 1-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4, Chapter 1 Summary

In New York, 1951, Friedrich escorts his father and his Uncle Gunter to their seats at Carnegie Hall, where Friedrich will be conducting the Empire Philharmonic. We learn what transpired after Friedrich was accosted on the train in Germany: the guards leapt back to the platform as the train started, and he made his way to Dachau, where he rescued his father before heading to Switzerland. We learn that they have not seen Elisabeth again. However, the family made a comfortable life in Berne. Friedrich prepares to conduct an evening of George Gershwin pieces: “Porgy and Bess,” followed by “Rhapsody in Blue” and “South Pacific.” It is implied that Mike will be a piano soloist, and that Ivy is the young flautist who Friedrich has mentored. He conducts, feeling at one with the orchestra.

Part 4, Chapter 2 Summary

Mike makes his way to Carnegie Hall with Frankie, Mr. Howard, and Aunt Eunie. We learn that Mike was indeed mistaken about Eunice’s intentions. His fall knocked the wind out of him, but nothing worse; afterward, Eunice told him her true feelings. She married Mr. Howard. Mike played in Hoxie’s band for one year, at the end of which he gave his harmonica away to an organization collecting instruments for poor children. Mike plays the piano solo in “Rhapsody in Blue,” by George Gershwin, once again channeling the blues’ combination of sadness and hopefulness.

Part 4 Chapter 3 Summary

Ivy prepares for the second half of the concert. Her parents are not there, as they are helping Fernando and his wife welcome a new child into the world. We learn that he was injured in battle and discharged. Meanwhile, Ivy began to attend an integrated Lincoln Main. Kenneth Yamamoto, however, is at Carnegie Hall: we learn he was saved from a bullet by the harmonica in his breast pocket. While in a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, he was nursed by three women with “beautiful and otherworldly” voices: they urged him to fight “as if they were begging for their own lives, as well as for his” (573). However, upon improving, he awoke to a German nurse, Elisabeth, who said there were no such women. Ivy plays “South Pacific,” a story about intolerance and war, and feels that a silken thread connects everyone in the auditorium.

Epilogue, Part 1 Summary

We return to Otto’s story: he had a disabled daughter with his childhood friend, Mathilde, and struggled to make money to support her. Then, he found an opportunity as a harmonica craftsman. He needed to make thirteen sample harmonicas, and he modeled his on the one he received from Eins, Zwei, and Drei. However, at the last minute, a dog chewed one up, so he had to submit his special harmonica as part of the batch. We learn that he painted the “M” on the harmonica to stand for “messenger.”

Epilogue, Part 2 Summary

The final section of the book returns to Eins, Zwei, and Drei’s fairytale. They were released from the woods carrying a volume called The Thirteenth Harmonica of Otto Messenger, and reunited with the family.

Part 4, Chapter 1-Epilogue Analysis

These chapters reveal the fates of all the characters presented in the Prologue, as well as in the first three parts of Echo, and reveal the ways in which they are connected by much more than the harmonica itself. We learn that Friedrich escaped the soldiers at the train station, that Mike survived his fall with little more than a scratch, and that Fernando was injured in action, rather than killed. All of our characters and their families had happy fates that led them to Carnegie Hall.

At Carnegie Hall, each of the main characters has followed their passion for music, and excelled. Together in New York, they prepare to play George Gershwin pieces that focus on similar themes to Echo: war, racism, sorrow, and hope. Each musician is immersed in the music as they connect with the stories of their childhoods. As orchestra members, they all know each other and admire each other’s talent, as well as a mysterious feeling of connection they all share. They are connected by the harmonica, but also in other ways: Elisabeth, Friedrich’s sister, nursed Kenneth Yamamoto, for example.

The Epilogue reveals that, when Kenneth’s life was saved by the harmonica Ivy gave him, Eins, Zwei, and Drei were released from their captivity. Furthermore, we learn that the “M” on that harmonica was painted by Otto when it saved his own livelihood and allowed him to support his disabled daughter. The “M” stands for “Messenger,” and while the harmonica itself is a sort of message, so is the music that came out of it, empowering the musicians.