57 pages • 1 hour read
Stanley Gordon WestUntil They Bring The Streetcars Back
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1991A 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 1-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Cal Gant is in jail because of Gretchen Lutterman and her dad, who wants to kill him. Jail is not a place Cal thought he’d ever be, but he is relieved that he finally feels safe in prison. Moving back in time, Cal tells how he wound up behind bars.
In his recounting, Cal is a senior at Central High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. His family isn’t wealthy but they do “all right,” with Horace Gant, Cal’s dad, driving a streetcar for the Twin Cities Rapid Transit Company.
One of Cal’s best friends is Steve Holland, who discovered he had polio in the sixth grade, making his right leg skinnier and shorter than his left leg. Steve limps, and due to his physical condition, the only position and sport he can play is a hockey goalie. Jerry Douglas is another one of Cal’s best friends. They like to punch each other’s arms as a friendly gesture.
The plot begins in Miss Whalmen’s study hall in Cal’s high school auditorium. Jerry gives marbles to the other students to play a prank on the teacher. At 1:20 pm, everyone drops their marbles, startling Miss Whalmen. Regaining her composure, she sentences everyone to detention, or “seventh period.”
Gretchen, one of Cal’s peers in study hall, protests, telling Miss Whalmen she didn’t drop a marble. She says her dad is waiting for her, and she can’t stay. Miss Whalmen tells Gretchen to speak to the students instead of her because they’re why she’s in trouble. Gretchen goes to the row behind Cal and says her dad will “whip” her if she stays, hoping Cal will defend her and suggest she can leave. Cal doesn’t believe her, and he says so out loud, earning him detention all next week. This means Cal will miss football practice and the game.
Before this day, Cal didn’t know anything about Gretchen. In a school with 1,500 students, Gretchen doesn’t typically do anything to stand out. She wears “plain” dresses, big oxfords, and no makeup. She’s skinny “all over,” and she doesn’t smile. She’s like a “zombie,” Cal reflects.
Chapter 2 Summary
Cal explains his love for Lola Muldoon, who has blonde hair and eyes that are an elusive shade of blue. Lola has a boyfriend, Tom Bradford, and Lola says people call Gretchen “Gretch the Wretch.” Cal calls Gretchen “queer” (as a derogatory insult meaning strange) before hitchhiking home. Cal loves cars, and hitchhiking helps him experience a variety of automobiles.
Cal’s dad, however, hates cars. Cal’s dad is the caretaker for the apartment building, so his family gets a discount on rent. Aside from Cal and Horace, Lurine, Cal’s mom, and Peggy, Cal’s little sister, live in the home. Peggy loves animals but the building forbids pets, and Cal’s parents fear the tenants will tell on them if they break the rules.
In the alley near his building, Cal spots four elementary school boys torturing a rabbit. Cal scares them off and brings the rabbit, who has a bloody leg, home. Upon seeing the rabbit, Lurine “hit the ceiling.” She’s also upset by the blood on Cal’s shirt and jacket. She thinks Cal should have left “well enough alone.” The rabbit excites Peggy, and Lurine lets them keep it overnight.
Chapter 3 Summary
At dinner, Horace is in a “crummy Norwegian” mood. He drives the Grand-Mississippi line and is passionate about streetcars and his profession. However, he believes the streetcars are about to become obsolete due to buses, and he often rants about this during family time.
The Gants then hear McClusky’s dog. McClusky lives in a nearby house, and he abuses his dog. Peggy and Lurine express sympathy and want to report their neighbor, but Horace declares that McClusky and his dog are none of their business.
Horace fought in World War I, and the deadly combat traumatized him. He doesn’t go to Cal’s games as a result. At Cal’s football game the same night, the Central Minutemen play the Johnson Governors, and Cal gets an interception. About to score a touchdown, he fumbles the ball and the Governors recover it. Nevertheless, the plays cost the Governors 30 yards.
Chapter 4 Summary
After the game, Cal and his friends pick up food at the Top Drive-In. Cal mentions he has detention all next week due to Gretchen. Sandy, one of Cal’s friends, calls Gretchen “really strange” and claims Gretchen’s sister “went crazy.” As Tom and Lola make out, Steve jokes that Cal loves Gretchen.
Near his house, Cal locates the North Star. Cal’s uncle, Emil, taught Cal about the North Star. Emil lived in a rural cabin near Grand Marais—a small Minnesota town near Lake Superior. When Cal was 10, his parents sent him to stay with Emil, though Cal didn’t want to go. Upon arrival, he collect called his mom, but she rejected the charges. Emil smelled like wood, and his Ford station wagon was a mess. In the woods, Emil told Cal to listen to the wolves sing.
Chapter 5 Summary
In study hall on Monday, Gretchen tells Cal that her dad harmed her. She can’t get into specifics, and she says she shouldn’t talk to Cal or “any boy” for fear of being caught by her dad. Cal promises to keep what she tells him confidential. At the same time, he wants to avoid her because her situation makes him uncomfortable.
Detention is run by the “bumbling” history and Latin teacher D. B. Sandersen. To “torture” students, Sandersen winds up an alarm clock that divides the hour into loud, ticking seconds. Typically, the students get someone not in detention to summon him so they can hide the alarm clock and watch him “rage.”
Cal delivers groceries for Mr. Finley’s grocery store as a part-time job. Finley has a deal with Sid, who runs Prior Liquor Store, so Cal also delivers alcohol. To make the deliveries, Cal drives Finley’s 1946 Plymouth truck. In the truck, Cal sees his dad driving the Grand-Mississippi streetcar line. For 29 years, Horace has worked for the Twin Cities Rapid Transit Company. For 10 years, he’s driven the Grand-Mississippi line. Spotting his son, Horace smiles and rings the bell.
Chapter 6 Summary
To mess with Sandersen, Jerry removes the pins from his classroom door, so when Sandersen opens it, the door comes off, and Sandersen “dances” with it. The students laugh, but Cal feels bad. He doesn’t want Sandersen to get hurt.
Gretchen confides in Cal that Helga, her sister, had a baby, and the baby is dead. Afterward, Jerry calls Gretchen a “vampire,” and Cal remarks that she’s “nutty.” However, Sandy thinks it’s “nice” that Cal speaks to Gretchen.
At home, Lurine believes she’s cursed due to her various aches and pains. The rabbit is still in the apartment, but Lurine wants it gone by the following day.
At the homecoming dance, Sandy, who works in the office first period, tells Cal she can forge passes to get him out of class. Sandy and Cal have been friends since third grade when she poured hot soup on his tongue to free it from a fence he licked when the weather was freezing. Sandy often calls Cal “Bean.”
Chapter 7 Summary
On Sundays, the Gants attend the Immanuel Lutheran Church, taking the Grand-Mississippi line. When Horace isn’t operating the line, he rides “shotgun” and talks to the “motorman” or driver—typically Andy Johnson. Andy’s twin boys died in World War II.
During the service, Pastor Ostrum, an ex-basketball player, gives a sermon about love. He says that love isn’t a “warm feeling” but something people “do.” The topic makes Cal think about Lola. The first time he saw her, he felt like a truck ran over him. Horace jokes that he realized he loved Lurine when she had her knee on his throat.
After school on Friday, Cal runs into Lola. She missed meeting up with the group of friends due to a yearbook meeting. To be with Lola, Cal takes the streetcar instead of hitchhiking. They discuss an upcoming dance put on by a teen group. Cal plans to go by himself. Lola claims lots of girls would go with him. Cal wants to go with “the right one,” implying Lola, but Lola wonders if he has a “secret heartthrob.”
Lola’s parents are divorced, and her dad lives in Baltimore. She wishes her dad would watch her cheer, just as Cal wishes his dad would watch him play football. Lola and Cal meet up with their other friends, and Jerry jokes that Cal’s “secret” crush is Gretchen. Cal thinks he should “shake” both Gretchen and Lola out of his life.
Chapter 8 Summary
Cal reflects that Uncle Emil died when Cal was 14. Cal spent four consecutive summers with Emi, and Emil willed his cabin and land to Cal. Cal didn’t get them, however, as Cal’s family sold them to pay off Emil’s debt. Cal likes that Emil found something “better than money.”
During his break from delivering groceries, Cal plays football with his friends. They call Gretchen’s family “screwy” and discuss how Helga “cracked up” and ran chalk across the blackboard. The teacher got the principal, and when the principal arrived, Helga was rocking in the teacher’s chair like a “zombie.” Now, Helga is in the Fergus Falls psychiatric hospital.
At the Dutch Bakery, Cal gets a donut and spots Gretchen, who works there. Cal says hi. Gretchen says they’ll tell her dad if she talks to him. However, Gretchen says she has lunch at 11:30 on Saturday, and that maybe he should come by then.
During dinner before Cal’s last football game, Horace complains about communism and the atom bomb. Horace won’t attend the game, but Cal’s team wins. Back at home, Cal hears McCluskey’s dog whine out of loneliness.
Chapters 1-8 Analysis
Stanley Gordon West starts his story in medias res––Latin for “in the middle of things.” In a sense, Chapter 1 fast-forwards to Chapter 33, where Cal is in jail for stealing liquor. By beginning his book in the middle of the action, West immediately captures the reader with drama and gripping questions about Cal’s predicament. West also establishes the life-and-death stakes of the story, hinting at the heavy content of the novel.
The title of Until They Bring the Streetcars Back immediately invokes the theme of The Importance of Resilience, which is then explored throughout the novel. The title refers to someone—later, it is revealed to be Cal—refusing to do something “until they bring the streetcars back.” In other words, they’ll tough it out and stay strong until what they want occurs. Horace also supports the theme and title inherently in his characterization. About World War I’s impact on Horace, Lurine says, “[A]s sure as if he’d had a leg blown off, a part of him never came back from the bombardments” (13). While World War I traumatized Horace, he came back, and he works hard as a streetcar conductor to support his family. Horace is strong and the war didn’t break him. Horace’s fixation on streetcars and his resentment of how obsolete they have become emphasizes his stubborn and resilient nature.
The introduction of the dog and rabbit is the first hint of abuse in the story, and these moments additionally support Showing Compassion for Others. Cal rescues the rabbit from the violent grade school boys, and Lurine and Peggy show compassion for McCluskey’s dog by continually pointing out the dog’s anguish. Horace, at this point in the novel, shows a lack of compassion for the dog when he tells Peggy, “You learn to stay out of other people’s trouble” (15). Lurine displays a similar lack of compassion when, after Cal rescues the rabbit, she tells him, “If you’d leave well enough alone, you wouldn’t be covered with blood” (11). Thus, showing compassion means learning about the troubles of others and accepting additional burdens. Cal initially measures the compassion he distributes carefully, based on his home life and his father’s beliefs.
In Chapters 1-8, Cal and his friends typically don’t show compassion for Gretchen. When Gretchen tells Cal her dad will harm her if she gets detention, Cal dismissively responds, “Aw, Cripes, he isn’t going to whip you just because you got seventh period” (6). Cal and his friends perpetuate Gretchen’s status as a stigmatized outsider by calling Gretchen and her family a slew of names. Scott quips, “That’s a screwy family,” and Jerry jokes, “You better be careful, Cal. That’s a weird girlfriend, you got there” (47-48). In these opening chapters, Gretchen’s life doesn’t inspire compassion but derision.
Confronting Mature Issues in Adolescence is a throughline in this novel and other novels within the genre. Though Cal isn’t overtly compassionate toward Gretchen, she stays in Cal’s thoughts, leading him to declare, “I [wish I] could shake Gretchen Luttermann out of my life” (44). He can’t decouple himself and ignore her avowed danger and trauma. Gretchen confides in Cal, and Cal slowly begins to realize that he is now morally involved in a complex web of abuse and must find a way to act. Gretchen makes him promise not to tell anyone about what he knows, and Cal obliges, understanding that reporting the situation to an adult might make things worse instead of better. Still in high school, Cal must navigate this new conflict seemingly on his own. Gretchen, on the other hand, only knows her own life, which has been riddled with abuse, and understands that she is trapped and unable to escape. While some, such as Cal at the start of the novel, are dismissive of Gretchen’s comments about her home life, it is Gretchen’s reality.
West juxtaposes serious themes, such as Gretchen’s trauma, with humor. Cal is the first-person narrator, and the traumatic, dangerous world doesn’t overpower his funny side. Cal often makes ironic observations. About his family’s dinner-time seating arrangements, Cal states, “We sat in our God-assigned chairs” (13). The inflexible setup and predictable behaviors make it seem like dinnertime is an act of God. Cal also uses hyperbole in the narration. He admits, “[I]t irked me the way everyone in the United States knew I talked to [Gretchen]” (44). Every single American isn’t aware that Cal spoke to Gretchen; the members of his friend group, however, are aware, which makes it feel like a glaring oddity that everyone is privy to.
