54 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen KingA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Tim Jamieson resigns from the Sarasota police force after an incident in which he fired a warning shot to break up two boys, one of them holding a gun (that turned out to be a water pistol). Tim’s shot struck a streetlamp, which led to a falling part injuring a bystander. He was cleared of wrongdoing, but the department asked him to resign for the sake of public relations.
Tim intends to head north to New York, but a series of impulses leads him to DuPray, South Carolina instead. There, he sees a flier at the local sheriff’s station requesting a “Night Knocker,” a town watchman of sorts. Tim’s grandfather was a night knocker, so the idea appeals to him. When Sheriff John Ashworth interviews Tim, he learns that Tim was Sarasota’s officer of the year and has a commendation for saving a child from an alligator on a golf course.
Tim makes light of the story: The alligator wasn’t very big or hungry, and he drove it away with a golf club. Ashworth is amused and impressed by Tim’s empathy and level head. When Ashworth offers Tim the job, the latter decides to take it and later watches trains come and go at the depot while thinking about things—and people—being loaded and unloaded.
Tim settles down in DuPray and gets a day job loading for a warehouse near the train station. He likes the town and its people, including attractive part-time deputy Wendy Gullickson and night owl Annie Ledoux, a homeless woman who lives in the alley behind the sheriff’s station. Annie loves listening to late night radio, especially a conspiracy program called “The Outsiders.”
Tim lends an ear to town barber “Drummer” Denton, who suffers from depression. On another occasion, Tim comes across neighborhood children—the Bilson twins—running away to join the circus. He talks them out of their plan and escorts them home.
Tim implores Annie to help him make a banner to hang above the intersection on Main Street to discourage drag racing—which already led to some racers dying or suffering brain damage.
One night, Tim interrupts a holdup at Zoney’s Go-Mart. Tim’s job doesn’t allow him to carry a gun, so he alerts the station of the robbery and provides first-aid to the clerk, keeping him alive until an ambulance arrives. Impressed, Sheriff Ashworth tells Tim that there will be an opening for a regular police officer in a few months; Tim says he’ll think about it.
Part 1 establishes Tim Jamieson’s character. Both of Tim’s Sarasota-related stories frame him as thoughtful and level-headed. Back in Sarasota, Tim might have been exonerated for shooting the boy with the “gun” as he had no way to tell whether the modified water pistol was real or not. Tim found himself in a volatile situation with little information and time. He had no good choices and ultimately fired a warning shot, picking the option with the least risk of injury to everyone.
Tim’s second Sarasota-related story is one of two incidents that establish his role as a protector of children: The alligator incident illustrates that violence is never his go-to answer. He would have likely been excused for injuring or killing a potentially dangerous animal to protect a child, but instead gave the animal in question a few whacks with a golf club to send it back to the golf course’s water trap. When Tim encounters the Bilson twins sneaking out in the middle of the night, he treats them with respect, urging them to make better choices rather than scolding them. Tim’s actions establish him as a caring, responsible adult, someone on whom protagonist Luke Ellis will be able to depend—as opposed to the adults of the Institute.
Tim’s other relationships frame him as someone with a genuine concern for the marginalized and vulnerable. Annie Ledoux is on the lowest rung of society, but Tim looks after her. He also exhibits empathy for the depressed Drummer Denton, listening to his woes.
The robbery at Zoney’s Go-Mart frames Tim as a healer, his quick thinking via makeshift first-aid saving the clerk’s life. It’s this final act, not of violence but of healing, that earns him the right to be a police officer again if he so chooses. This is not an act of contrition for the mistake that cost Tim his old job, it is the passing of a test—a rite of passage raising him to “knighthood.”
Sheriff Ashworth’s comment on young drag racers being left so brain-damaged that they are practically worse than dead foreshadows the state of the children in the Institute’s Ward A—whose minds are far gone.
Annie Ledoux’s favorite radio program, “The Outsiders,” is a callback to Stephen King’s earlier novel, The Outsider (2018). King frequently references his own stories, creating a unified world (literal or theoretical) in the process. Annie engages in what ordinary people in Tim’s world would dismiss as paranoia, but the reader knows that in King’s multiverse, anything and everything is possible.
By Stephen King
Challenging Authority
View Collection
Community
View Collection
Family
View Collection
Fantasy
View Collection
Friendship
View Collection
Horror, Thrillers, & Suspense
View Collection
Mystery & Crime
View Collection
Power
View Collection
Religion & Spirituality
View Collection
Safety & Danger
View Collection
Science Fiction & Dystopian Fiction
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
The Best of "Best Book" Lists
View Collection
The Future
View Collection
Truth & Lies
View Collection