48 pages • 1 hour read
Nic StoneDear Justyce
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Snapshots 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “The End”
Snapshot 1 Summary: “Two Boys on a Brand-New Playground (2010)”
Nine-year-old Vernell LaQuan Banks Jr., also known as Quan, decides to run away from home after he “made sure Dasia and Gabe,” his half-siblings, “were safe in the closet” (17). He hides out in a playground rocket ship, where he meets 10-year-old Justyce McAllister. Quan, embarrassed to be caught crying, is initially rude to Justyce. Justyce shares that he is made fun of at school for being smart and confesses that his father hasn’t been the same since coming home from Afghanistan. Quan talks about his mother’s boyfriend, Dwight, explaining, “Every time he come around, he mad about somethin’, and he takes it out on my mom” (22), and that he feels responsible for protecting Dasia and Gabe from their father’s wrath. The boys share a moment of understanding, then part ways.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Doomed”
Quan recalls the day that his father was arrested and taken away for selling drugs. In his recollection, Quan is sleeping at his father’s house when police burst in and throw Quan to the ground. Quan is terrified and goes into shock: He “lost all control of his body and surroundings and couldn’t even make a sound” (28). The trauma of the event causes Quan to wet his pants. His father is handcuffed, knocked unconscious, and taken away, and when police attempt to take Quan, too, his father’s neighbor steps in. Quan wonders if Daddy was expecting this and arranged for Mrs. P. to look out for him ahead of time. Mrs. P. brings Quan to her house, where she feeds him and cleans him up. Quan tries to calm down but panics when he thinks about all of the responsibilities he has to face back at Mama’s house. He feels personally responsible for Gabe and Dasia and feels the pressure to be there for them. He takes a deep breath, and the story jumps to present day, where Quan now sits in a prison cell. He coaches himself to take calming breaths: “He won’t die now just like he didn’t die then. He can breathe” (37). Quan, now an older teenager, writes letters to his old friend Justyce and tells him about the night his father was taken away six years ago. Quan admits that he misses his father, who is serving 25 years. Quan tells Justyce that the night his father was taken, Quan felt like the only thing holding his life together was taken away as well, and he was doomed from that moment on. Quan thanks Justyce for sharing his old notebook full of letters to Martin Luther King Jr. (referring to the events of Dear Martin) and admits “we got way more in common than I woulda thought” (38).
Chapter 2 Summary: “Downhill”
In the aftermath of his father’s arrest, 12-year-old Quan tries to make sense of his new life without Daddy. Dwight moves in with Quan and his mother to help with the bills but continues to abuse Mama. Quan is committed to doing his best to keep his life together in Daddy’s absence. He tries to stay out of trouble and “stay focused” by taking care of Dasia and Gabe, and, “Despite their daddy being a human garbage disposal, they laughed and smiled and were doing good in school… All because Quan stayed focused” (46). Determined to make his favorite teacher and his parents proud, Quan studies intensely for a math test and scores a 98. Quan is bursting with pride and can’t wait to tell his mother and “give her hope that things could get better” (49), but when he tries to tell her, he discovers that a substitute teacher has accused him of cheating on the test. His mother believes the teacher and is furious with Quan. Quan feels defeated and begins to lose his motivation to hold his life together without any adults who support or believe in him. Quan realizes that “staying focused [doesn’t] give Quan any control at all” (52).
Snapshot 2 Summary: “One Boy Alone in a Library (2012)”
Quan tries to go to the library, which is one of his favorite places, but senses that the librarians are suspicious of him as well. Frustrated that his “safe place” is no longer safe, Quan leaves and never returns.
Present-Day Quan writes to Justyce again, thanking him for sending Dr. Dray, or “Doc,” to mentor him while he is in prison. Doc pushes Quan to “think about shit [Quan] didn’t really want to” (56), like the justice system, civil rights, and the idea of destiny. Quan wonders if his life is a result of his destiny, his choices, or some combination of both. Quan also wonders why he and Justyce, who shared so much commonality growing up, went down two radically different paths in life.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Disrespect”
Quan thinks back to the first time he stole something: He was “hungry the First Time he did it. So were Dasia and Gabe” (60). Dwight continues to abuse Mama, especially when Quan is away. Quan tries to go back to the playground rocket ship to get away from the stress of home but returns to find Dasia and Gabe hiding in the closet and Mama with fresh injuries; “the damage was already done” (63). Dwight takes Mama’s electronic benefit transfer card and leaves the house for several days. Without the card, Mama can’t buy groceries. Quan, desperate to feed Dasia and Gabe, steals bread and peanut butter from a convenience store. Dwight eventually returns with groceries.
Snapshot 3 Summary: “Two Boys Not Speaking (2013)”
One day, Quan and his mother are invited to lunch with Quan’s Aunt Tiff and his cousin Emmanuel, or Manny. Quan notices that Manny seems perfectly comfortable ordering salmon in this expensive restaurant, so he must come often. Aunt Tiff wears lots of nice jewelry (which Quan fantasizes about stealing and using to buy food for his family), and Quan can’t help but notice the differences between him and his cousin: Manny’s father is not in prison; Manny’s parents are wealthy; Manny and his family look perfect from the outside. Quan cannot relate to any of these things. Quan feels like they “occupy different universes” (70). Their worlds are so different, in fact, that Manny and Quan do not speak to each other and only make eye contact once during the meal.
Part 1, Snapshots 1-3 Analysis
The early chapters of the novel focus on explaining the critical events that shaped Quan’s early life. Key figures such as Quan’s family and his friendship with Justyce are established, and Stone uses a combination of flashbacks, “snapshots,” and letters to tell the story of Quan in a narrative structure that is similar to Dear Martin. The Quan that we meet in the first snapshot and Chapter 1 is still a child, while the Quan introduced in the final sentences of Chapter 1 is an older teenager in prison. In Dear Martin, Quan was a minor character who went to prison at the beginning of the novel for allegedly shooting and killing a police officer. The details of this event are not explained in the beginning of the book, although Doc does ask Quan directly if he is a killer. Quan doesn’t answer, however, leaving the reader to ponder the truth about Quan’s incarceration.
Early on, it is made clear that Quan received very little support from the adults in his life. He mentions that when father was arrested, he lost the only stable adult figure in his life. Mama spends much of her time in bed nursing her injuries at the hands of Dwight. Dwight wants nothing to do with Quan and dislikes him, going so far as to call him “Delinquent Junior.” Quan’s mother’s reaction to his high score on the math test signals a turning point in his life: His own mother assumed the worst about her son and saw no possible way he could have made such a high grade. With no adult influence to believe in him, Quan, like so many other young people in his position, sees no reason to continue to apply himself and try to be the best version of himself.
Quan refers to Dwight as “Count Olaf'' from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, which Quan mentions multiple times in the opening chapters. Young Quan seems to have a particular attachment to this series, which is about children who, like him and his siblings, are subjected to unfair situations out of their control. The book Quan tries to read in the library is the last book in the series: The End, which shares the title of Part 1 of Dear Justyce. This could signal “The End” of hope for Quan, or even his innocence. Part 1, then, will follow the whole story of Quan leading up to the night he allegedly committed the murder and thus “ended” his future.
Quan also wrestles with the idea of fate versus choice. He says that he felt “doomed” the night his father was arrested, and despite his decision to study for the math test, he feels like people like the substitute teacher, Mama, Dwight, and strangers already assume the worst about him. When he compares himself to his cousin, who seemed to be born into another universe than him, Quan’s opinion that he was “meant” to fall into a life of crime seems to solidify. Ironically, Quan’s earliest crime (the theft of food) was rooted in a deep sense of goodness and responsibility. He wants to provide for his family, and Quan feels tremendous guilt afterwards, proving that he is, in fact, a good kid in a bad situation who made a bad decision, which led to other bad decisions.
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By Nic Stone
