72 pages • 2 hours read
Lisa KoThe Leavers
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A 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.
Part 1, Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Another Boy, Another Planet,”
Part 1, Chapter 4
One week later, now in Ridgeborough, Deming feels uncomfortable with the Wilkinsons. His relationship with them is distant. They don’t like him speaking in Chinese, thinking it will affect his fluency in English, and name him “Daniel.” Throughout these new cultural experiences, Deming keeps mementos of his mother, which Vivian has left him. The Wilkinsons enroll Deming in middle school, where he feels “like sleepwalking, murky and addled, as if he’d wake up and be back in the Bronx with a finger snap” (52). Deming hears Kay and Peter talking one night, Kay mentioning her awkwardness as a parent. Kay wants to connect with Deming and muses if the problem isn’t Deming being Chinese, but Peter assures her “issues are colorblind” (57). Deming tries to please them, but he feels “if he could love Peter and Kay, they could leave too” (58). Every night Deming calls what he remembers as his mother’s cell phone. He remembers falling from a swing several months before his mother left and her urging him to “be strong” (66). He passes his first day at school alone and imagines himself being from another planet on a mission. Eventually, he makes friends with Roland, also an outcast for being the son of a white mother and a Hispanic father, and begins to adapt to Ridgeborough. Deming bonds with Peter over his albums since music reminds him of New York, and his interest in music intensifies with time. He and Roland make up bands, but Roland takes the credit for them. For his birthday, the Wilkinsons gift Deming with a laptop, which makes him miss Michael.
Deming overhears from the Wilkinsons that his mother returned to China and that there is a hearing to adopt him. Learning all this, he feels validated in not trusting them and wary of learning what happened to his mother. Deming looks up adoption and goes over the files that the Wilkinsons have on him, confirming that his mother left him and returned to China. He asks the Wilkinsons if he’s adopted as well as what happened to his family. The Wilkinsons say they are his family. Deming’s feelings of abandonment continue.
That summer, the Wilkinsons take Daniel with them to see their old friends, the Hennings, in New York. Jim and Elaine Hennings have a Chinese adopted daughter called Angel, whom Deming befriends. The trip reawakens Deming’s hope to be reunited with his mother. Out with the Hennings and his parents at a Chinese restaurant, Deming feels they see him and Angel as “objects of amusement” (89). He orders in Fuzhounese and dreams of running away. At night, he and Angel sneak out and head to Deming’s old apartment in the Bronx, finding that another family lives there. Deming and Angel return to the Hennings’ apartment.
Part 1, Chapter 5
Ten years later, Deming, now Daniel, buys a melon from a Chinese vendor where he used to live in Chinatown. Daniel reflects that his time at Ridgeborough made him “an expert in juggling selves” (95). While he hadn’t thought of his abandonment in years, his time in New York and Michael’s email has reminded him. Daniel finds himself responding to Michael’s email. His expulsion from college happened after he developed a gambling addiction that affected his coursework. His gambling addiction also led him to borrow money from Angel that he hasn’t been able to pay back, despite assuring her he would in a week. Enraged, Angel told Peter and Kay about his gambling. Daniel regrets the loss of Angel’s friendship since they both understand not living up to their adoptive parents’ expectations and being the “black sheep” (100).
Michael responds to the email and meets with Daniel. Michael is now a student at Columbia University. He recently came across some forms that Daniel’s mother, Polly, signed for Daniel’s adoption. Daniel reflects that neither his mother nor Leon wanted him and remembers how upset he was for weeks after going to his old apartment with Angel years ago. His adoption occurred four months after that incident. Michael tells Daniel Vivian would like to see him. When Daniel visits Vivian in Brooklyn, he finds she has married an accountant and is more financially stable. While angry at Vivian, Daniel finds himself comforted by being around her and Michael due to the familiarity of Chinese culture. He confronts Vivian about giving him up for adoption and asks about his mother. Vivian tells him she doesn’t know, but when Daniel asks if his mother is dead, she replies she isn’t and that Leon has seen her. She gives Daniel Leon’s number in Fuzhou. She also tells him that she paid Polly’s debts, otherwise Daniel would be dead. Daniel decides he will call Leon.
Part 1, Chapters 4-5
The next few chapters focus on Deming’s loss of his family and urban Chinese immigrant culture, as well as his transition to a new family and majority white, suburban culture. The result of this transition is how Deming later will weave between his Chinese identity and that of “Daniel.” With the Wilkinsons, Deming is given a new white name and not encouraged to speak Chinese. He finds himself conspicuous in his racial and cultural difference from his adoptive parents and peers, and he has trouble bonding with the Wilkinsons. In addition to how his adoptive parents marginalize his Chinese identity, he feels that any attachment to them only opens him to more hurt if they too abandon him. Missing his home, Deming creates a fantasy that he is from another planet and will be picked up by his family and return home. Every night he calls a number he remembers as his mother’s cell phone. Despite his isolation, little by little Deming adapts to life at Ridgeborough.
He makes a friend in Roland, bonding with him over their family losses. He also discovers music, which he associates with the city. Nevertheless, Deming’s homesickness and his desire to return with his family persist even months later. When the Wilkinsons take him to meet their friends, the Hennings, and Deming is introduced to their adopted Chinese daughter, Anger, Deming expects her to speak Mandarin and is disappointed when she doesn’t. He escapes the Hennings apartment with her and goes to the Bronx, intending to track his family down to the apartment where they used to live. Just as he was disappointed with Angel not knowing Mandarin, he is crushed to find a new family living in that apartment instead.
In the present day, now-Daniel mentions how he’s become skilled in managing both identities. These, however, can also interfere with each other. In New York, his dormant Chinese identity “Deming” begins to resurface as he continues with doubts over his adoptive parents’ expectations. His problems with gambling start when he notices how good he is at keeping secrets, a skill related to the way he alternates between identities. As “Deming” in New York, he buys from a vendor using his Fuzhounese and his knowledge of haggling. He also decides to answer Michael, meets with him, and goes to meet with Vivian. Michael becomes the key to his past as Deming. At Vivian’s, Daniel is given Leon’s number, a means through which he can come closer to knowing what happened to his mother. While he finds out more about his past, Daniel continues to mourn the loss of his friendship with Angel, who understands how impossible he has found it to be “Daniel,” the kind of son Peter and Kay want.
