83 pages • 2 hours read
Thomas KingThe Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
AfterwordsChapter Summaries & Analyses
Afterwords: “Private Stories” Summary
Unlike the other chapters, this chapter does not open with the same story about the earth being constructed on the backs of turtles. Instead, King begins with his usual transition line: “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are” (153). He then launches into his final dichotomy: the difference between public and private stories. He mostly thinks “of oral stories as public stories and written stories as private stories” (154), though he admits (as he usually does with dichotomies throughout the text) that the distinction is far too simplistic, as reading and hearing can both be public or private acts. Regardless, he tells the reader one of his “private stories,” though he admits that referring to it as such sounds “hyperbolic” and renders the story potentially “just another cheap literary trick” (155).
The story concerns his friends John and Amy Cardinal. They have three children, one of whom, Sam, is an adopted child who “suffers from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)” (155), a condition that causes developmental and behavioral problems. King’s family and Cardinal family spent a lot of time together, but eventually Sam’s behavioral problems “intensified” and made seeing them more problematic, and made John angry, leading King to distance himself from them “until it was as though [they] had never known each other” (161). When King and John briefly reconnect later, King learns that John has left his family. King feels guilty and wonders if “just being there” would have made a difference in the lives of the Cardinals (166). He admits that “this is the question we always ask after we have given up” (166).
King ends by stating that, though he now knows the story and its ending, his desire for comfort and pleasure would still prevent him from making “amends for [his] despicable behavior” (166). He admits it is “easier to tell [himself] the story of [his] failure as a friend, as a human being, than to have to live the story of making the sustained effort to help” (166). Finally, he admits that the reader has no reason to trust the story, since he is a “storyteller.” However, the reader has “heard it now” and “can have it” if they want it (167).
Afterwords Analysis
The book ends on a relatively somber note. While many of the anecdotes recounter throughout are tragic (as they are, after all, about the death of an entire race of people), the story about the Cardinals is more poignant because it shows King’s own failures rather than the failures of others. He left his friend in a time of need because it was easier to do so, and he admits that he would do it again. King also connects such behavior to a broader pattern of human behavior, writing that all of us “care more about our comfort and the things that make us comfortable” (163) than about doing the right thing. This explains why we look the other way after environmental disasters and other tragic events. It’s always easier to tell a story about failure than to prevent it. Thus, the final power of stories is that they provide cover. It is easier to tell stories about why our world is the way that it is, and it is easier to remember tragedy than to prevent it.
Throughout this short chapter, King complicates his argument more than usual. He reminds the reader that they should be suspicious of him, and he admits that he may be using manipulative storytelling techniques. Doing so, ironically, makes the story of his own failure seem more believable, more honest. Rather than telling the reader to believe him, King anticipates that they will not and actively encourages them to doubt it before saying that he did not make the story up (166). Whether the story is true, of course, does not matter. As with all stories, it matters only that we believe it.
This chapter also strengthens the statement King makes at the end of each chapter: “Just don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now” (167). Since King admits he would not live his life differently even though he lived this story, he emphasizes the point that stories should never be used as an excuse or justification for bad behavior. He takes responsibility for being a bad friend while admitting that, sadly, he cannot ever not be one.
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