49 pages • 1 hour read
Jason ReynoldsThe Boy in the Black Suit
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A 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 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Against the Rules”
Matt attends school, goes to work, and sleeps in the house alone during the weeks that his father stays in the hospital physical rehabilitation unit. He dreams nightly about his mother attending her own funeral and grows to enjoy this dream time with her. Mr. Ray looks out for Matt and takes him to visit his father, who gradually learns to walk again. Matt's father’s jaw and ribs heal, and one day, Matt hears him joking with Dr. Winston in a way that “sounded like himself again. He sounded like Daisy Miller’s husband” (119).
Matt maintains his grades at school but focuses more on his job working for Mr. Ray. He comes to enjoy his afternoons and looks forward to attending funerals. Each time he sits in on one, he looks for the person who was closest to the deceased, whom he can always pick out by their signs of grief. Matt can hear “the sound of their hearts breaking, weeping, sobbing, all in the pitch of pain” (114). He knows that no one attending the funeral can help them through their grief, just as no one can help him through his grief for his mother, but “just knowing that we were all struggling with this thing…that helped” (114).
Matt attends all kinds of funerals: happy, funny, mournful, quick, disorganized. He sees young people at the funeral of teen Dante Brown, former students from 70 years ago at the funeral of teacher Marie Rogers, and a scripted performance at the funeral of Glendale Price, an actor who wrote the lines himself before he died. Matt finds the most grief-filled person at each funeral and watching him or her; it brings in him a warm feeling of commiseration: “As long as I could spot the person hurting the most, I could feel the warm buzz filling me up inside, like a hit to junkie” (118). He never stays for the repast after or speaks to the mourners, except for the funeral of Gwendolyn Brown.
Matt sets up an abundance of flowers for Ms. Brown’s service, arranges the repast, then sits in on the service. The minister announces that songs and an address by Ms. Brown’s granddaughter, Love, will comprise the service. Matt is surprised to see that the granddaughter does not show the usual signs of hard grief in the person closest to the deceased; he is even more surprised to see that Love is the cashier at Cluck Bucket, whose name he thought was Renee.
Love calmly speaks fond words about her grandmother, recalling how Ms. Brown cared for her when her own mother died and taught her to take photographs. She reads a letter from Ms. Brown in which the deceased lady reminds everyone that she has only changed forms and looks forward to welcoming everyone one day “with a photo album, a cup of tea, and a hug like you never felt before” (130). Matt breaks his own rule and attends the repast. Love spoons food to those in the serving line, and Matt reminds her how he applied for a job at the Cluck Bucket. Mr. Ray steps in and reveals that Matt works for him. Renee teases Matt for eating on the clock. She joins him to eat. Matt references her name on the necklace, and she clarifies that Renee was her mother. Matt comments that losing someone like that “never gets easier” (138), but Love states that it did get easier for her.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Wide Open”
Matt and Love share a cab after the funeral. She gives him leftover food, and he pays for the cab. Love jokes that Matt should be dropped off first because she lives alone, and he could be a killer. He jokes with her in return, revealing that he too lives alone, and she could be a killer as well. When Matt leaves the cab, Love offers her number.
Matt sees Chris walking toward him. He offers Chris some of the food. Chris has a successful history with girls, and he asks questions to gauge Love’s interest in Matt and determines that she will soon be Matt’s girlfriend. Love texts Matt, and Matt sends Chris home so that he can text in private. In texting, Matt reveals details about his parents. Love asks him to join her for Thanksgiving dinner the next day as they are both alone. Matt is thrilled.
Chapter 9 Summary: “In Loving Memory”
The next morning, Matt wakes to see that Love texted again after he fell asleep. He attends school in an upbeat mood, telling Chris that he and Love will be alone for Thanksgiving dinner. After school, Matt goes to work but finds Mr. Ray away at a cancer support group. Matt goes to the cemetery where his mother’s grave is instead. He sees a homeless man on the train on his way. His good mood in which he feels like a “giant” dissipates, and he becomes angry and mournful. He tears up the flowers that grew faded and crispy in the months since his mother’s funeral and pounds them into the ground. Trying to calm himself, he tells his mother aloud in simple words about Love.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
As the immediate danger of his father dying passes, Matt settles into a routine of school, work, visiting his father at the rehab unit, and attending funerals of people he doesn't know. Mr. Ray continues in a strong mentor role, as he checks on Matt and gets Matt to the hospital for visits. Mr. Ray also does not question Matt’s need to attend the funerals they set up and organize.
Matt shows intrapersonal skills as he characterizes his need to attend funerals. He is aware that his actions might be slightly morbid or “creepy,” but the compulsion is too great. He must visually seek out the person in the room who is hurting the most—the person who was closest to the deceased in life—because it allows him to emotionally connect with someone who holds a measure of pain and grief like his own. Finding that person at each funeral soothes him: “Every time I saw them, the closest ones bent over in tears, it felt like a warm rain came down inside me” (114). His obsession embodies the phrase "misery loves company."
This predilection for others' grief is Matt’s new ordinary world, one in which school and his father’s recovery take a backseat to his work for Mr. Ray and observing funerals for himself. He leaves this ordinary world when he sees Love at her grandmother’s funeral. Symbolized by the moment he breaks his own rule to stay for the repast, Matt steps out of his ordinary world and begins a journey toward both the possibility of a relationship with Love and her secret method for healing from grief.
While the sharply pitched conflict of almost losing his father is past, Matt’s conflict over losing his mother continues. He listens to Tupac’s song and dreams repeatedly that his mother sits close to him at the funeral. He comes to think of this as their time together, and he grows upset and angry when he wakes and discovers she is not there.
When Love asks Matt out, one of his first reactions is hope that his mother can see his happiness and excitement. He goes to her grave for the first time. Despite the eagerness and anticipation for his date the next day with Love, however, Matt’s mood plummets when facing her headstone. He says, “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” then corrects to what he really means: “I don’t know what you’re doing here” (159). His mother loved flowers, but Matt cannot stand the sight of them as they are dry and dead, symbolizing that all lives end. Matt beats the flowers into the ground. Only once he releases some of his anger can he share the news of meeting Love.
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By Jason Reynolds
