45 pages • 1 hour read
Chris CrutcherDeadline
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2007A 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 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Ben Wolf is starting his senior year at Trout High School in his small hometown of Trout, Idaho. He plans to spend his final year reading everything he can, challenging his teachers, excelling in cross country, and asking out his classmate Dallas Suzuki. However, he discovers he might not finish high school just weeks after his 18th birthday.
Doctor Wagner calls a meeting with Ben after his running physical (2). He wants Ben’s parents to be there, too, but Ben says they can’t make it. Doc reveals that Ben has a rare blood disease and only has one year to live. Ben can’t imagine breaking the news to his parents or his brother, Cody. His mother has bipolar disorder, and the family already works hard to support her.
Ben goes for a run to think about the news. He listens to a song, remembers a dream he had, and considers what to do. Afterward, he returns to Doc’s office and announces that he isn’t going to tell anyone, not even his family, about his diagnosis. He makes Doc promise to keep it confidential.
Doc takes Ben to a specialist in Denver a few weeks later. The specialist suggests immediate, aggressive treatment, but Ben doesn’t change his mind about his decision. He instead plans to eat well, take vitamins, and go out for football (10).
Chapter 2 Summary
Ben attends his first football practice with Coach Banks and the Trout Cougars. He’s starting on a freshman level and is smaller than most players. His brother Cody is a star football player, but everyone is surprised that Ben is joining the team because he’s a star runner.
Coach gives a speech about teamwork and sportsmanship. He reminds his players to be civil to each other on and off the field. Then, Coach and Ben discuss Ben’s reasons for playing football. Ben explains that he wants “a new experience” (18). He’s confident that he can excel at football the way he did at cross country. The commitment is also low stakes.
Chapter 3 Summary
Ben meets with his new therapist Marla Dawson. Doc promised he would keep Ben’s condition secret if Ben talked to Marla regularly. Marla gets emotional when she hears Ben’s story. Ben tries to explain the reasons behind his decision and that he’s always sensed his life would be short (23). Reading, he tells her, has also taught him that human life is small in the context of the universe. Ben and Marla discuss Ben’s goals and desires for the upcoming year. Ben tells her about his recent reading and crush on Dallas.
Marla tries to convince Ben to pursue treatment during another session. Ben asks her not to make him take care of her. They change the subject to dreams. Ben describes his recent dream conversations with a dream figure named Hey-Soos and the life advice he’s been giving Ben.
Chapter 4 Summary
Ben meets Coach in his office. Coach has a framed photo of him with Sooner Cowan’s dad, Boomer, on the wall. Sooner is one of Ben’s teammates. Coach and Boomer used to play football together. However, after the Idaho State championship, Coach returned to Trout to coach high school football.
Coach again asks Ben about his reasons for joining the team. He reminds Ben that he’ll be starting from the beginning, as his peers have been playing throughout high school. Ben doesn’t mind. He and Coach have been close for years. Coach has always “felt like a second dad” to Ben and Cody (37). He’s always supported them when they have family trouble. Ben remembers one Christmas when his mom had an episode and lit the Christmas tree on fire. Coach picked up the Wolf brothers and took them to his home.
Ben guesses that Coach could be playing football anywhere. However, he returned to Trout High School after his girlfriend Becky Sanders died in a car accident. He had also gotten into trouble with his last coach when he defended a Black player on his team.
Ben decides to continue playing football in spite of Coach’s questions. He guesses that if the team does well, it will be because of Cody (39).
Ben attends Mr. Lambeer’s government and current events class. Because the school is small, the students have small classes and the same teachers throughout their four years. Ben has been reading Lies My Teacher Told Me because he doesn’t agree with Mr. Lambeer’s politics and wants to know more about history. In class, he brings up topics from the book and Outgunned. He and Lambeer argue.
Ben’s team plays their first game. Everyone is surprised by Ben’s playing.
Then, Ben approaches Dallas for the first time. They talk and make plans to meet at a local restaurant, The Chief, that evening. Ben is surprised and delighted.
Ben has another dream conversation with Hey-Soos. Ben tries to understand who Hey-Soos is. Hey-Soos encourages Ben not to waste time and to focus on what he’s going to do with his final year. They go on to discuss spirituality and legacy.
Chapter 5 Summary
Ben attends football practice. Ben notices Sooner’s behavior and thinks about his life with Boomer and Boomer’s past with Coach. Afterward, Ben sends Cody home and walks to the local car garage to see Rudy McCoy. Ben sometimes works there washing cars but doesn’t often see Rudy. He gives Rudy some of his supplements. Rudy is known as the town drunk and hasn’t been looking well (56). Rudy doesn’t want the vitamins but Ben leaves them anyway.
Ben and Dallas meet at The Chief. Dallas says she wants to write a profile on Ben for the school newspaper. She’s impressed by his decision to play football and asks him questions about it. Ben gives her careful answers but makes jokes, too. Dallas also asks about Ben’s academics and his arguments in Lambeer’s class. They discuss all the things their teachers aren’t teaching them. Before Dallas leaves, she asks Ben to the homecoming dance. Ben is eager to discuss it with Marla.
Chapter 6 Summary
Ben and Hey-Soos talk about what happened with Dallas. Ben wishes he weren’t dying because he’s liked Dallas for a long time. Hey-Soos urges him to go to the dance anyway.
Ben has a session with Marla. Marla tries to get Ben to stop making jokes and talk more seriously. Ben tells her about Dallas and describes the way he felt when she asked him out. Marla is understanding.
The Cougars win their next game and Ben plays well. Afterward, Ben and Cody make plans to go to the dance together, but their mom isn’t well when they return home. Cody tells Ben to go meet Dallas and promises to support their mom in his place. Ben usually stays with her after a manic episode and tries to make her feel better.
Dallas invites Ben over after the dance, as her mom isn’t home. In Dallas’s room, they kiss and have sex. Afterward, Dallas tells Ben to go home because it’s late and his parents will worry. Instead, Ben drives to the lake and thinks about everything that is happening in his life.
Chapters 1-6 Analysis
Chapters 1 through 6 of Deadline introduce the novel’s primary conflicts, stakes, and thematic explorations. This world building happens through the protagonist Ben Wolf’s first-person point-of-view narration. Ben’s narrative voice is confident and honest, grounding the reader in his journey through his realistic accessibility. In this section, Ben discovers his diagnosis, decides to hide his illness, and begins living life to the fullest in anticipation of its end. All the events in this section build tension, as the reader knows the inevitability to come in the novel’s final pages while those in Ben’s life do not. Close to Ben through his narration, including his thoughts and feelings, the reader feels a tension akin to the character, understanding what is not being said in every interaction.
Ben’s diagnosis acts as the novel’s inciting event. In Chapter 1, Ben is convinced that he has an exciting final year of high school ahead of him. While his peers “use their senior year to coast; catch up on partying and reward themselves for making it this far,” Ben plans “to read everything” he can get his hands on, speak up for what he believes in, and challenge himself academically and athletically (1). His diagnosis threatens these plans and forces Ben to make fast decisions about his future. Suddenly Ben isn’t the star athlete and student with his whole future ahead of him. The Confrontation of Mortality is suddenly a necessity, and he must choose how he will spend his final months alive. His diagnosis therefore awakens him to his life. However, he doesn’t use his newfound condition as an excuse to give up on his goals. Instead, he interprets the diagnosis as a sign from the universe “reveal[ing] to [him his] destiny” (6). Therefore, the diagnosis makes Ben realize the value of life and the importance of living well (10). His desire to succeed, to be brave, and to experience and learn new things only grows when he learns how little time he has left. His response to the diagnosis reveals Ben’s strength of character and launches Ben on his journey toward Self-Discovery and Personal Growth in the Face of Adversity.
Ben doesn’t tell his family or community about his condition because he wants to protect others and claim his own agency. Both Doc Wagner and Marla Dawson try to convince Ben to be open about his diagnosis. They want him to have support, and they want him to consider treatment. Ben respects both Doc and Marla but is set in his decision. He not only has no interest in spending his final days “bald and puking” (10), but also doesn’t want others to look at him differently or to pity him. He decides to keep his prognosis a secret as a way to maintain normalcy in his life. He also has his family’s interests in mind and believes that giving them the news in advance will only complicate each of their emotional experiences. Ben isn’t using the secret to push others away, but instead sees his secret as a protective act of grace. At the same time, Ben’s decision isn’t a one-off choice. He “rethink[s] and rethink[s] and rethink[s] and rethink[s]” the decision because he’s worried about “[his] dad’s bewilderment,” the effect it “will have on Mom,” and “[his] brother’s rage” (23). However, Doc’s and Marla’s repeated suggestions that Ben reconsider his decision to conceal the truth foreshadow coming conflicts surrounding Ben’s secrecy, thematically highlighting The Impact of Secrets and the Value of Transparency. Furthermore, Ben begins to realize that hiding the truth from others complicates how he can relate to them. For example, when characters like Coach and Dallas ask about Ben’s reasons for joining the football team, Ben must bend the truth. He doesn’t outright lie, but he must omit information about his illness. Such instances promise to recur as Ben’s condition progresses over the coming months.
The dream figure Hey-Soos enters Ben’s life just as he needs someone to confide in about his journey and diagnosis. As the name suggests, Hey-Soos embodies both the archetypal guide role in Ben’s story and a religious-adjacent Christ figure who can ease his concerns about bigger questions of life and death. In Chapter 4, Ben tells Marla that Hey-Soos “isn’t your run-of-the-mill savior,” but that he helps Ben “talk about what to do with [his] life” (33). Hey-Soos offers Ben the space to process his distinct and isolating experience. Ben isn’t sure who Hey-Soos actually is, but he trusts him and sees the wisdom in his assessments of Ben’s situation. He helps Ben navigate between his desires and fears and his emotional and logical brains. Ben must continue to rely on Hey-Soos for comfort and guidance while he keeps his secret from his loved ones.
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By Chris Crutcher
