57 pages • 1 hour read
Colleen OakleyThe Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A 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 23-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 23 Summary
Four days after Louise was reported missing, Agent Huang criticizes her coworker, Jamal, for releasing the information about the Jaguar to the press, because now Louise has ditched the car, giving it as a tip to a teenage breakfast worker at the Holiday Inn Express. Agent Huang is frustrated and trying to stop swearing for the sake of her young son, Philip. Agent Huang pulls the phone records from the Holiday Inn Express and then rereads the newspaper clipping from the Boston Globe from January 2, 1976, outlining the robbery of the Copley Plaza hotel in which two armed men robbed 52 safety deposit boxes and made out with $3 million in jewels and cash, including the 37-carat Kinsey diamond. The seven staff members held hostage were apologized to by the robbers and given $50 each in compensation. The police were looking into a few leads, including New York Mafia leader Salvatore D’Amato. The Copley Plaza Heist became a cold case five years after the robbery, passing from agent to agent. Patricia, aka Louise, had been the “girlfriend” of Salvatore, and Agent Huang finds her to be a suspect. She considers the fact that past agents may have overlooked Patricia since she is a woman, and she recalls being similarly overlooked when she hoped for a promotion; this case could change her career. The agent before Agent Huang released a photo of Patricia in Ohio and got a tip that someone had seen her on a college tour with her daughter and the daughter mentioned being from Atlanta or Alabama. The tipster says that Patty saved her life but doesn’t elaborate. The file on Louise comes back, and her social security number matches an eight-year-old girl who died in 1963. Her 1984 arrest for mail theft also comes up, detailing that she stole $532 in checks from her neighbor.
Chapter 24 Summary
Louise calls a taxi after giving away the Jaguar and attempts to leave Tanner behind, even offering to pay her in full. Tanner rejects this and demands to come with Louise, afraid that without their adventure, she won’t have any direction. She confirms that Louise will still say she kidnapped her, then they set off. The taxi takes them to a Catholic church in Fort Morgan, Colorado. Louise naps while they’re waiting for the priest, then goes in for confession with Father Tony. She knew Tony’s mother before she passed away and asks Tony for somewhere to stay in return for the help that she gave his mother. Tony then recognizes her and addresses her as Patty, emotional and grateful for the help she gave his mother, and offers for the pair to stay at his sister Rosie’s house.
At Rosie’s house, Tanner waits, staring anxiously at the driveway. Someone knocks on the door, and Louise tells Tanner to answer it. It’s August, and when Tanner questions why he’s here, Louise reveals that he’s their ride to George.
Chapter 25 Summary
Four days after Louise is reported missing, Agent Huang looks at the case file for Louise’s 1984 arrest. Louise never went to jail but pleaded guilty and had her charges dropped from a felony to a misdemeanor. She paid a $500 fine and did 40 hours of community service. Louise got a light sentence because she never cashed the checks. Agent Huang looks at the judge’s notes and feels bothered by Louise’s excuse. She said she stole the checks to avoid her neighbor sending them to millionaire televangelists, stating that the televangelists should be sending the money to her neighbor instead. Agent Huang mulls over whether Louise was telling the truth before Jamal interrupts her and says that Louise made a call on the teenage breakfast worker’s phone, but he has Verizon coverage, which means that it will be harder to get the phone records. Agent Huang then receives a call that Nebraska police found the taxi driver who drove Louise and Tanner to the church, and Agent Huang tells Jamal to book them a flight to Colorado.
Chapter 26 Summary
Tanner questions why August has come, and Louise tells her that he owes her a favor. August comments on Tanner’s newly short hair—she cut it in Rosie’s bathroom as a disguise. August rented a gray Honda Odyssey for the trip, and the trio hit the road toward Redding, California. August has his phone, which angers Tanner, but Louise explains that no one would know to track August, since they don’t know he’s with them. When night falls, Louise tells them that they must drive through the night to make it to George in time. Once Louise falls asleep, August apologizes for standing Tanner up for their date, explaining that he has an eight-year-old son from his high school relationship and his ex-girlfriend needed him to babysit. Tanner forgives him, and then August asks why Tanner accompanied Louise on this journey and why they ran. Tanner tells him about the heist and that she thought he was in cahoots with Louise. Tanner asks August why he came, and he explains that Louise got him a job as a line cook. August asks Tanner what Louise did for her as she falls asleep. She says that Louise did nothing, though deep down she knows it’s not true.
After a long night and day of driving, they arrive in Redding at 5:36 pm. At Shasta Senior Living, Louise asks the receptionist to see George Dixon, but the group is told that George is in the memory care unit, and visiting hours are over. They can come back the next morning at nine o’clock.
Chapter 27 Summary
The news of George’s declining memory hits Louise hard. Besides cancer, dementia was her greatest fear in growing old. She worries that George won’t remember her and that it’s too late for their reunion.
Discouraged, the group camps out in a motel for the night. While August gets the rooms, Louise asks Tanner to google Salvatore D’Amato on August’s phone. Five days ago, a news article said that he was to be released in five days. For all Louise knows, he’s already free. August returns and Louise gets her own room, and Tanner and August share one. They walk across the street to get McDonald’s and end up playing paper basketball while watching TV. August asks Tanner questions about her life, and she tells him everything.
When they’re done eating, Tanner gets up to shower, startled to find the gun in her suitcase. She goes to shower, and as soon as she’s done, August knocks on the door. When she opens it and asks if he’s alright, he shakes his head and kisses her. He tells her that he missed his chance earlier and wasn’t going to miss it again. After a few moments of kissing, August pulls back and tells her his secret: He has a criminal record. In high school, he was caught with more than three ounces of weed in his car, which is a felony in Georgia, and went to jail for three years. Louise got him the job, even with his felony. Tanner, not bothered by his record, asks him to check on Louise so that they can make out in peace, though she tells him that she won’t sleep with him yet.
Chapter 28 Summary
Five days after Louise was reported missing, Salvatore D’Amato talks to his brother on the phone and asks him for a ride somewhere. Though he was violent in his past, he thinks that he is a changed man. He doesn’t want revenge, but he wants what Patricia, aka Louise, stole from him.
Chapters 23-28 Analysis
The secondary plot of the novel is the romantic arc between Louise and Tanner, and Oakley threads it into the rising action to build the stakes relating to Tanner’s character development. After the revelation that the police and FBI are really after the duo, Tanner and Louise make it from Nebraska to Colorado to California, with the help of August, who meets them along the way. August and Tanner’s romance heats up, with him opening up to her emotionally about his time in prison for marijuana possession and his son, who was the reason he had to miss his and Tanner’s date. In California, they talk and kiss, fulfilling their romantic arc and helping Tanner move on from her college ex.
Tanner’s character development is also apparent because of the symbol of the gun. The gun appears in Tanner’s suitcase while she shares a room with August, a protective measure given to her by Louise and a symbol of Tanner’s power in the situation. Unlike on the balcony, she does not have to step backward if the encounter turns into something she does not want. She doesn’t need to use it, but it demonstrates her growing sense of agency.
The Pursuit of Adventure continues, as Louise tries to leave Tanner behind in Nebraska when she realizes the authorities are pursuing her. Tanner rejects this idea and insists on accompanying Louise, both due to their friendship and Tanner’s growing sense of both adventure and self-empowerment. Tanner cuts her hair as part of the disguise when they get to Colorado, which, like the burning of the letter, is a physical act representative of a change within herself. Though Louise burns George’s letter as a reminder of the pressing nature of their secrets, Tanner cuts her hair a reminder of the transformative journey she is on with Louise. The “old” Tanner was afraid and angry, but the “new” Tanner embraces the adventure and starts to forgive herself.
Louise’s character arc develops in these chapters due to indirect characterization. August reveals that she helped him get a job despite his felony record. Father Tony, the priest who helps them hide in Colorado, has a great appreciation for something Louise did for his mother in the past. Special Agent Huang reads the court transcripts from Louise’s 1984 mail theft arrest and sees that Louise stole checks from her next-door neighbor, who was elderly and living off Social Security income, to prevent her from giving them to millionaire televangelists. She destroyed the checks instead of cashing them so that the neighbor could keep their money. Despite her initially thorny exterior, the narrative clarifies that Louise has a warm and caring heart.
These chapters end with Salvatore D’Amato’s release from San Quentin Prison, which pushes the danger of the adventure forward. Though the trio has made it to Redding, they have yet to see George, so the danger and anxiety still hangs over Louise.
