58 pages • 1 hour read
Kim Michele RichardsonThe Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Outside on the porch, Cussy Mary tries to overhear the conversation between Doc and Pa. She can only hear some of it. Pa argues that Frazier would have killed her and that he likely wanted to impregnate her to rid her of the devil, though he was the devil himself. Doc argues that he was an important man to some people and it’s a lot to ask for him to look the other way without getting paid. Cussy Mary only hears a few words, then: “Blue, medical, Bluet, doctors, cure, tests” (117). Doc says that if Cussy Mary goes with him, he’ll ensure she isn’t harmed. Outside, Cussy Mary goes to see Junia.
Chapter 16 Summary
Later, Cussy Mary argues with Pa that she’s not sick, she’s just a different color. However, Pa tries to convince her to go with Doc for examinations, saying that she’ll be safe. They argue, but Pa is hopeful that Doc will find a cure for their blueness, as he wants her safe before he dies. Cussy Mary says that Doc knows the truth about what happened with Frazier, but Pa responds that he only knows that there’s a dead Frazier. Though Cussy Mary protests that they didn’t do anything, Pa replies that they didn’t have to: They’re blue. Doc is calling soon, and Pa insists that he will save them from hanging.
Doc arrives at their house, and he and Cussy Mary take turns riding his horse into town. They stop outside his house. His housekeeper, Aletha, is Black, but she does not want to have Cussy Mary in the house because she is blue, even though Doc tells her to get her tea. Doc leads Cussy Mary to his car, which scares her; she’s never been in a car. He comforts her, telling her they’ll be back in the afternoon. Initially scared of the car’s flimsiness, she eventually looks out of the window and falls asleep.
When she wakes up, they are in Lexington. The city is very different from Cussy Mary’s home, and she feels dowdy. The city feels like the life she’s read about in books. She rolls down the window, overwhelmed by the smells and noises. The two arrive at St. Joseph’s hospital, a large and imposing building. A nun at the front desk makes Cussy Mary uncomfortable; she feels watched. Doc takes her to the Colored Ward and his office there. He gives her a cotton wrap for her examination, but she doesn’t want to undress. He also gives her a pill for her “hysterics.” Randall Mills, a Black doctor, comes in and is astonished at Cussy Mary’s color. The doctors order heart and lung tests and tell her to dress herself in the wrap, leaving her. However, Cussy Mary wads up the gown with the pill when she notices there is a slit in the back. She tells Doc the gown is torn, but he has two nuns come in to strip her and give her sedatives in suppository form. They physically overpower her, take her clothes off, and give her the suppository, securing her to the table. Though she is screaming, the drugs start to work, and Cussy Mary falls asleep.
Chapter 17 Summary
When Cussy Mary wakes up, she is in the back of Doc’s car, feeling sick. She falls back asleep. When she wakes again, she realizes that her hand is bandaged and wonders what the doctor did to her. He tells her she has “chocolate-colored blood” and apologizes for the roughness of her treatment (129), telling her he will soon fix her. However, she doesn’t want to be fixed. She wishes she has never been born. She tells the doctor she has cramps, and he tells her they took samples from her cervix and skin, among other places. He offers her food, but she’s not hungry. Doc continues that it would be safer for her to be white. He gives her laudanum, which helps her to feel better. Realizing that her situation has potential, Cussy Mary tells him she’ll needs something to heal her scrapes, as well as food. He gives her a pear and some cheese, telling her he will bring her more cheese and bread later, and gives her rubbing alcohol and honey to dress her wound. Cussy Mary knows that the honey is particularly valuable and hard to get.
Chapter 18 Summary
Cussy Mary arrives back home at dusk. As they part, Doc gives her hair ribbons as a gift, saying hers were lost while she was being examined, although she notes in her narration that she only had twine in her hair before. He restates that he may be able to cure her and that he will bring food, then come back in a month. Pa is asleep when Cussy Mary comes inside. He wakes and asks if she’s all right, but she tells him to go back to sleep, as she doesn’t want him to see her in this state. There is an envelope for R.C. Cole, the fire watcher, waiting. She takes the satchel, the bottles Doc gave her, and the letter and goes out to Junia. Securing the gate, Cussy Mary goes to bathe in the creek and studies what the doctors did to her. She’s bruised but not permanently harmed.
Back at the house, Pa is going to a special meeting. Cussy Mary realizes this is another union meeting and therefore dangerous. He asks about the city, but she doesn’t want to worry him and tells him that she just has some scratches. He tells her he’s going to rent a horse to clean up the trails for her. She then packs his lunch with the pear and cheese she got from Doc, does chores, reads the newspaper, and finds items for different clients. She takes the medicine from her bag, gets willow bark from above the stove, and puts them both back into the bag, thinking they will help Mr. Moffit.
Chapter 19 Summary
In the Moffits’ garden, Angeline asks Cussy Mary if the doctor is coming. She tells Cussy Mary that she made a doll for her baby, Honey, who is coming. Cussy Mary explains that the doctor is busy, but Angeline worries that the fever is bad. She goes into the house to cry by her husband’s bedside. Cussy Mary sees that he’s much worse and that the wound may be infected. She shows Angeline the medicines, starting to dress the wound and give Willie willow bark tea. However, he refuses to be touched by a “colored,” so Cussy Mary tells Angeline what to do for him and leaves.
Chapters 15-19 Analysis
Although Vester Frazier, one of the book’s antagonists, has died, the narrative in this section is still driven by the question of what will happen to Cussy Mary and her father now that he is gone. This tension brings associated questions about Doc’s testing in Lexington. In this way, Richardson further develops the idea that the real villain in the novel is not any one character, but rather the social attitudes that let the antagonists act in such horrific ways. Cussy Mary’s trip to Lexington and the surrounding events all work to build to the later climax, when she confronts the townspeople in the penultimate chapter. Prejudice is the enemy, not a particular character.
It is prejudice that allows authority figures to abuse their power, which happens extensively in this section. The reasons for this distrust of authority are hinted at as Cussy Mary stands on the porch, trying to overhear what Doc wants to do with her. However, she can only hear individual words, making his intentions obscure. This mystery lends an ominous tone to the section, illustrating to readers why some authority figures may not deserve our trust; instead, trust has to be earned, as Cussy Mary earns it from the patrons on her library route. When it is not earned, incidents happen as they do in the hospital scene when Doc uses his authority to get the nuns to strip and drug Cussy Mary for him. Although he alone might not be capable of overpowering her body, he has the standing in the hospital hierarchy to make others do it for him—and he does.
This section additionally highlights how dangerous prejudice can be when one is confronting difference. This theme shows up in in both less and more harmful ways. Aletha, Doc’s housekeeper, refuses to let Cussy Mary into the house. Although this does not physically harm Cussy Mary, it is still offensive. This refusal also illustrates the ways prejudice extends to different parts of a community; Aletha is Black but finds Cussy Mary’s blue skin offensive. Just because society sees them both the same way does not mean that they have accepted this classification. However, the dangers that Cussy Mary and Pa face in this section go beyond offense to outright physical harm if Doc reveals what happened with Frazier on their land. Similarly, Pa agrees to let Cussy Mary go to Lexington with Doc because he realizes that she would be safer in their community if she were white. Nevertheless, the testing process is far from safe for Cussy Mary: She is physically restrained, harmed, and drugged. The overwhelming character of the city and the hospital combine with the terror of this moment to highlight how helpless Cussy Mary is when separated from her community.
The larger reading community is notably absent in this section, though hints of Pa’s union activities are further developing, indicating another kind of community that is important to him. The importance of care is shown primarily in how people mistreat those supposed to be under their care—here, Doc and Dr. Mills towards Cussy Mary. However, Cussy Mary is able to manipulate Doc’s understanding of how he should care for his patients to get medicine and food, which she will in turn use to care for members of her reading community—even Willie, who is prejudiced against her. In this sense, Doc serves as a foil for Cussy Mary. She represents the proper care authority figures should show the people they serve, while Doc represents the abuse of this power.
