Summary

"The Hit-Thumb Theory" is narrated in the third person past tense, like the rest of the novel. However, in this chapter, the vocabulary seems to be more elevated and educated than in previous chapters.

The chapter begins with Charlie Macauley in a sketchy motel outside of Peoria, Illinois, waiting for a woman to arrive. Although it is clear he was having an affair, the reader does not yet know that the woman who will arrive was prostitute. As Charlie waited, he noticed the barbed wire around the parking lot and thought about how most people were like rats, leaving the world with nothing but more excrement, but then his gaze found the top of a maple tree still holding two yellow leaves. The persistency of the two leaves made Charlie remember planting crocus bulbs with Marilyn, his wife, when they were in...