70 pages • 2 hours read
Catriona WardThe Last House on Needless Street
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A 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 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Ted Bannerman”
It is the anniversary of the disappearance of the little girl with the popsicle. Ted Bannerman remembers the day with trepidation. The police searched his house, and a reporter took his picture, which later appeared in the local paper.
The townspeople persecuted Ted, breaking his windows until he boarded them up. The house remains boarded, with only small peepholes through which Ted and his cat, Olivia, peer. Ted was innocent; his alibi was that he spent the whole day outside of 7-Eleven asking for candy.
To calm himself, he goes to look at the birds in the yard. To his horror, somebody has left glue traps. Birds are stuck to them, dying in the heat. Ted views this as murder. He does not want his daughter Lauren to see, so he goes outside to clear up the birds and chases away a stray tabby cat. Unfortunately, the birds and the glue traps all stick together into a mass, and Ted is unable to extricate them without damaging them. Desperate, he builds a miniature gas chamber out of a Tupperware container and suffocates them. Ted is distraught.
Ted puts the dead birds in a trash bag. Outside, he is greeted by his neighbor, with orange-juice colored hair. Ted is self-conscious when the neighbor notices he is not wearing shoes.
Ted loses track of his surroundings and the passage of time. When he comes back to himself, he is outside of the chihuahua lady’s home. The woman expresses concern over Ted’s bare feet. Ted claims he was chasing away the tabby cat. The woman says that cats should be rounded up like vermin. Ted mechanically agrees, but privately judges her. The woman tries to be friendly to Ted, inviting him for tea. Ted declines and limps home. His foot is bleeding, though it does not hurt, but he wants the neighbor to think it is painful.
Back inside his triple-locked home, Ted disinfects his foot with industrial disinfectant. He cannot feel the injury. He tries to make sense of the birds’ murder and whether it is linked with the 11th anniversary of the girl’s disappearance. Ted tries to make a list of possible suspects, but he is only able to think of some of the neighbors, whose names he doesn’t know, instead, referring to them by nicknames such as the “Otter man,” “Men who live in Blue house together,” and “Orange-Juice-Hair Man” (10). He adds his own name to the list.
Ted eats an early lunch to help cope with the day’s events. He hides the list in the closet and finds his mother’s old cassette recorder. Ted records his favorite lunch recipe (a grilled cheese, honey, and banana sandwich), though he knows his mother would disapprove. Ted hates his own voice. The “bug man,” which is his nickname for his therapist, told him to keep a feelings diary, which Ted finds unacceptable. However, he thinks it’s good to record the recipes in case he disappears one day.
Ted hides Olivia in her “crate,” a non-functioning chest freezer that the cat bizarrely loves, because his daughter Lauren is coming. Later, Lauren and Ted play Lauren’s favorite game: She races around the house on her bicycle, shouting questions to Ted. They are interrupted by the chihuahua lady, who asks about Ted’s mother, whom she has not seen in a long time.
When the neighbor leaves, Lauren acts out. She argues with Ted and screams that she hates him. When Ted tries to take his afternoon pill, she slams into him, causing him to lose the pill. Lauren scratches Ted’s face, so he sends her to take a nap. He conditioned her to fall asleep to a particular record.
Ted worries about Lauren, who is becoming a difficult preteen. He also worries that he is losing track of himself more these days and that he has relaxed his guard too much. He wonders how long he can protect Lauren, but he figures that since Olivia reconciled with captivity, Lauren might too.
In the evening, Lauren leaves, and they say goodbye until next week. Lauren is unfazed, but Ted hides how upset he is. On difficult days, Ted finds it difficult to distinguish between past and present and hears his parents’ voices, though he realizes they are gone and “Only the gods know where” (17). Ted reflects that the gods are close, in the woods.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Olivia”
Ted’s black cat, Olivia, records her thoughts on the tape recorder.
Ted interrupts Olivia as she cleans herself. Despite her annoyance, she can tell that Ted is upset, so she goes to comfort him. She thinks this is her God-given purpose. Ted’s only record is playing; Olivia knows the songs by heart. Ted plays it constantly when Lauren is absent.
Ted rescued Olivia when she was a kitten. Olivia remembers being rescued by Ted by the roadside when her mama died of illness. Olivia watched a golden cord connect her and Ted’s hearts. Olivia is content living in the house, safe from strangers.
A high-pitched sound wakes Olivia. She follows it through the house. She looks around the living room. She hates the Russian doll and the picture of Ted’s parents on the mantlepiece but likes the music box. She is relieved that Lauren is not there. She knows Lauren has psychological issues.
Olivia realizes the tabby cat will soon cross the yard. Excited, she rushes to a peephole in the covered window to watch. Olivia loves the tabby and looks forward to her appearance each day.
She decides to consult the Bible about the sound. She knocks it off the table. It opens to a comforting passage, but she has a bad feeling.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Ted”
Ted uses the old cassette player in his mother’s closet to record memories of the day at the lake when he was a child. On the drive over, he asked his parents if he could have a cat. His mother said no; she thought pet ownership was cruel.
The beach was crowded. Ted’s mother made him keep his sweater on, despite the heat. Ted longed for a wooden cat keychain as a souvenir, but his mother refused. Ted was mortified when he realized they ate baby food for lunch, though Mrs. Bannerman claimed it was nutritious. Mrs. Bannerman told Ted about a boy, Pemoc’h, from her childhood village, Locronan, France. The boy was an orphan, grateful for whatever scraps of food he was given.
Mrs. Bannerman told Ted’s father to watch Ted. Ted played in the water, remembering how a young boy went missing at this lake. Mrs. Bannerman returned with the wooden cat to surprise Ted. He named it Olivia. Ted’s joy uplifted them all.
Mrs. Bannerman insisted on driving them home because Mr. Bannerman was drunk. Ted only recognized his father’s alcoholism years later.
Mrs. Bannerman pulled over in the dark woods and asked Ted to follow her into the trees. She asked him how much he loved the wooden cat, forcing him to admit his love for it was selfish. She praised him for being honest. She then made him put the cat on the ground and leave it behind as a rehearsal for loss. Ted was distraught and never asked for a cat again.
The next day, Mrs. Bannerman put up the bird feeders. Ted realized that she was showing him something safe to love. Ted stops recording because he is upset.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Dee”
Dee Walters is on vacation with her family by the lake in Washington one summer when her younger sister, Lulu, disappears. Her parents are strict and conservative; Dee struggled to convince them to let her attend Pacific ballet school.
Lulu wants to play a mind-reading game with Dee. When her response makes it clear that Lulu has read Dee’s diary, Dee gets angry. Their parents let Dee explore by herself for half an hour, threatening to call the police if she is gone longer. Dee ignores Lulu when she wants to show her a pretty pebble.
Dee flirts with a teenage boy but suddenly realizes her period has started. Mortified, she rushes to the crowded bathroom. The women waiting inside are helpful. She cleans up as best as she can, then wades into the lake.
Closing her eyes, she relaxes—until something brushes her cheek. She is surrounded by rattlesnakes in the water. She freezes in terror until the snakes swim away.
When Dee returns to her family, her parents are panicking. Lulu is missing. The Walters stay in Washington for a month as the authorities search for Lulu. Dee’s mother leaves the family soon after, and her father later dies of a stroke.
In the 11 years since Lulu disappeared, Dee has lived wracked with guilt and anger, determined to discover what happened to Lulu. She tracks down male suspects from the lake that day. Detective Karen, once sympathetic, now wants Dee to quit searching and move on with her life.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Ted”
When Lauren isn’t home, Ted unlocks his laptop and goes to a dating site. He wants a woman in Lauren’s life. However, Ted can’t imagine himself alone with any of these women. Ted is unaware of his appearance because there are no mirrors in the house, but he is self-conscious of his weight and the bald patches where Lauren pulls his hair.
Ted feels his mother’s hand on his neck and hears her whisper in his ear, “You have to move them […]. Don’t let anyone find out what you are” (55). He does not want to; it makes him sad and scared. His mother’s presence fades, but it is never completely gone. He drinks a beer but finds no comfort in it. He decides to move the gods.
Ted returns later and records a message for himself. He badly injured his shoulder when he tripped in the woods. Even though he cannot feel pain, he can feel the effects it has on his thoughts. Olivia is concerned and tries to comfort him.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Olivia”
Ted staggers in from his trip to the glade and greets Olivia. He injured himself. Ted coughs some blood onto the carpet and lies down. Olivia licks up the blood.
When Olivia goes to the peephole to look for the tabby today, the cat is already there. They make eye contact, and Olivia’s heart burns. Olivia is agonized when the tabby turns away and is greeted by a white tomcat. She is relieved when the tabby rebuffs him.
Olivia found God when she was almost attacked by a dog when she tried to go outside, despite Ted’s warnings that the world is dangerous. Back in Ted’s arms, she felt their golden cord glow and felt the Lord’s presence. The Lord looks like everything and everyone, His face changing constantly. She knows the Lord will take on her face when it is her time to die. The Lord told Olivia that He saved her so she and Ted could help each other. They have made a good team ever since.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Dee”
Dee meets with a rich man who has the only known photograph of a suspect. The man lets on that he knows about an incident in Oregon where Dee confronted a man who fit the typical description of a child abductor. Karen had accidentally given Dee the man’s whereabouts. However, the Oregon man had a solid alibi.
As payment for the photo, the rich man wants to see and mentally collect Dee’s reaction to his macabre true crime museum. Dee fights nausea and a panic attack. After she leaves, she pulls into a truck stop to calm down.
The photograph is the full version of the photo of Ted in the newspaper. In the full version, Dee can make out part of Ted’s name and the street sign for Needless Street. Dee recognizes Needless Street. She suddenly remembers her father getting lost and having to turn around on the street with the odd name. Dee weighs whether to tell Karen this information but decides not to.
Dee believes she has found Lulu’s abductor.
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
The first seven chapters of The Last House on Needless Street sets the trajectory of the main characters—Ted, Dee, Olivia, and Lauren—by establishing the history that connects Ted and Dee. Ted’s narrative is confusing; his evident mental health struggles render time and space malleable in his experience. Ted himself admits that “When I have a bad day, now and then get slippery. I catch Mommy and Daddy’s voices in certain places around the house […] Then silence falls and I remember that they are both gone. Only the gods know where” (17). This slippage in time makes it difficult to keep track of Ted’s movements—both for the reader, and for Ted. Ted loses track of himself for hours or even days at a time, demonstrated when he comes back to himself having walked for blocks barefoot through the neighborhood on an injured foot. To preserve his sense of self—he fears disappearing altogether—Ted keeps audio recordings of his thoughts, mostly recipes and reminiscences. This is indicated in the text by the presence of italic text. Most of Olivia’s musings are recorded in this way. Olivia’s chapters come from the perspective of a cat, so her narration may be as unreliable as Ted’s. Olivia’s life, up until this point, is uneventful—what one might expect from a cat. However, she begins to hear a high-pitched noise that will begin to plague her in later chapters. This will prove to be a very important plot device in Olivia’s character arc.
This early section of the novel starts to establish the complicated subject of children’s relationship with their parents that Ward explores throughout the novel. Chapter 4 shows that Dee’s motivation is entirely self-centered; she initially saw Lulu only as an obstacle in the way of getting into her dream ballet school or a rendezvous with a boy. However, this is not Lulu’s fault, but rather a product of the fact that Dee grew up in a restrictive, conservative family. Their overprotective tendencies cause Dee to rebel—in small ways—but also to become secretive. Dee is now haunted by grief and a sense of responsibility for Lulu’s disappearance; these factors manifest themselves in the form of panic attacks and ophidiophobia, though the true cause of Dee’s psychological issues is not revealed until much later in the novel. For the moment, Dee is haunted by the trauma of her loss, demonstrated by her reaction to the rich man’s true crime museum and the way that Lulu’s spirit haunts her.
Ted, too, had a complicated relationship with his parents, particularly his mother. In the early chapters of the novel, Mrs. Bannerman comes across as a strict, almost utilitarian woman. Chapter 3, in which Ted recalls the Bannerman family’s trip to the lake at the same time as Dee and Lulu’s, best demonstrates her character. She feeds the family baby food, which causes Ted to feel great shame—this indicates that even he knew there was something wrong with his family situation. The absolute joy that Ted feels when his mother buys him the wooden cat keyring—the first Olivia—indicates an unhealthy homelife; Ted remembers, “The rush of gladness was so strong it actually felt like pain” (33). Joy has been an anomalous occurrence in Ted’s childhood, and that joy is snuffed out when Mrs. Bannerman shows Ted the cruel side of her personality shortly after by making him abandon “Olivia” in the forest. Ted adores and borderline worships his mother, but she is the cause of his trauma. For example, Ted reflects that the female singer of the record that Ted constantly plays (possibly Blue by Joni Mitchell) is “like a mother, but one you don’t have to be afraid of” (16). In fact, everything in Ted’s house still reflects his mother’s presence, from his habits to the decor: the blue rug, the Russian nesting doll, his gods, and his secretive behavior. Ted appears suspicious, not just to Dee, but to the reader as well. His furtiveness, his strange relationship with Lauren, and his mysterious “gods” buried in the woods are evocative of the behavior of a serial killer.
