Heroes of the Frontier
Plot summary Heroes of the Frontier, by Dave Eggers, is a novel about a story of a single mother with her two children and their adventures throughout Alaska. Josie was a dentist and lost her dental practice by a lawsuit. Carl, the father of her children, did not want to get married when they were together. However, by the time she decides to leave their life in Ohio, Carl asked Josie to introduce her new fiancé to the kids. She take her kids and went to Alaska where her stepsister lives. They drive around in a rented Chateau RV. Sam is not her real stepsister. They grew up together in Sunny’s house where they emancipated themselves where Josie was seventeen years old. Josie, Paul, and Ana make several stops on their way to Sam’s house. They were invited to a magic show in a ship by a fisherman in the area. Where they arrive, Josie thinks Sam has her live together since her house is very organized and her twin daughters behave good. However, one night Sam takes Josie to a bar where she finds out that Sam is having an affair with an elderly man. Josie decided to leave the bar and it is hit by a truck and pushed off to the road. She wakes up at the hospital and Sam tells her that the nurses had to call Carl. When she gets home, she waits for Sam to go to work and leave with the children. In their drive, Josie stops because Paul saw a sign of an archery place. At this place, they met Angie and Kyle and they are another couple driving a truck carrying a small house in the bed. Ana and Paul played with her children. When they are parked at this RV park, Kyle informed Josie they have to leave due to a wildfire. After a long drive, they found an abandoned cabin and sleep there one night. The owner gets back and told them he was going to call the police. Josie and the children run to the Chateau and drive away. In the next RV park they get themselves into, they are having a wedding and Josie, Paul, and Ana are invited to dance. The following day, Josie and Jim ( owner of the RV park) went to have dinner together and they take the moment into intimacy. They are caught by Paul and she leaves feeling ashamed. They drove with no destination in mind where one of the tires pops and they stop on the side of the road. A group of men dressed in orange decided to help. After they fixed the problem, she finds out they are all inmates. During another of their long drive, they found a silver mine and go there to explore. When they discover the mine is shut down and the caretaker’s cabin is empty, they stayed there for a few days. They are happy there. One day they go to the town and Josie met musicians. She asked one of them to write down some of the songs in her head. His name is Cooper. While they are at Cooper’s house, the town needed to be evacuated and they ended up at a school’s shelter. She called Carl and found out that he was not mad at her. When Josie and the children take a walk, they went to see a mountain lake. A storm began and it was very dangerous. They arrived at another shelter that it has been set up for a party that never occurred. After leaving her dreary life in Ohio, Josie has the feeling that she is finally right where she belongs.
Characters
Josephine: A forty years old single mother, who decided to leave her old life in Ohio and searched for new opportunities in Alaska.Her name is Josephine, but she was called Josie during the entire novel and she is the protagonist. She was a dentist and lost her dental practice by a lawsuit made by a patient with stage 3 cancer. She is the protagonist with her two children Paul and Ana. At the beginning, she is depressed, anxious , and has low self-esteem. By the end, she decided that going to Alaska have changed her life in a positive way.
Paul: Josie’s eight-years-old boy. He is intelligent and quiet. He is very attached to her sister and he is constantly taking her of his sister. He is very independent. Throughout the novel, he is always portrayed as a loving brother and the best care taker Ana could have. His character developed and he became very brave.
Ana: Ana is Josie’s five-years-old daughter. Since she was burn, she developed a lot of health conditions that required a lot of attention. She is very energetic and barely sits. Her mom is always bothered by the idea that Ana is never sorry. As they travel along, Ana told her mother she loved her. When they were at a shelter and she helped a kid drink water, her mom realized she has changed.
Carl: Josie’s ex boyfriend and the father of her children. He never had a serious job. He went to Josie’s practice and then they met again at Foot Locker. He was younger that Josie. His parents were wealthy. When he was with Josie, he never wanted to get married. He is now with Teresa and she was his new fiancé. He was hardly involved in Paul and Ana’s lives.
Samantha: Samantha was Josie’s stepsister. She lived in Alaska and had twin daughters named Zoe and Becca. She and Josie met at Sunny’s house when they wanted to emancipate at a very young age. Her house is extremely organized, but she has a very open relationship with her husband.
Evelyn Sandalwood: She is the woman whose family sued Josie and that was why she lost her dental office. Josie made the decision to give Evelyn her dental practice. She died when they were in Alaska.
Jeremy: Jeremy was one of Josie’s best patients. He was a baby-sitter for her kids once. He was a very good guy. Her father was Venezuelan and his mother Cuban. He wanted to enlist for the Peace Corps and Josie encouraged him to do so.he died in Afghanistan.
Stan:Old man who rented the Chateau RV to Josie. He waited for them at the airpot and took them to his house to give them the car.
Luisa: Luisa was Carl’s mother. She was Ana and Paul’s grandmother and loved Josie. She lived in Florida and was always on Josie’s side.
Teresa: Teresa was Carl’s new fiancé. Her parents wanted to meet the kids and this is why Carl contacted Josie to bring the kids to Florida.
Deena: Deena was Josie’s friend. She was also a single mother and her kids went to school with Ana and Paul. She was the one that had mentioned Alaska as a destination at the beginning of the novel.
Charlie: Charlie was the old fisherman who invited Josie, Ana, and Paul to the magic show.
Sunny Kimura: Sunny was Josie’s dentist. Whenever she had a problem at home. Josie would go to her office and talk for a while. She later came up with the idea of emancipation.
Helen: Helen was a lawyer and a friend of Sunny’s. She was the lawyer that took care of the emancipation process Josie went through.
Robert: Robert was and old man Josie and Sam have found on the bar the night they went out. Sam had kissed him and this was the reason why Josie wanted to leave and then got hit by a truck.
Jim: Jim was a proprietor of an RV park. He always complemented Josie and the kids. Josie was hooking up with him when Paul caught them in the action.
Doug: Doug was a guy Sam was dating when she welcomed Josie and her kids with a barbecue at her home.
Tania: Josie’s recent hire at the dental office. She was the registered dental hygienist.
Summary of Chapters
Chapter I: The first chapter begins at a rest stop in southern Alaska where Josie and the children are spending the night in the Chateau RV they have rented. She has taken the children and left Ohio without informing Carl. Sam, her stepsister, is a bird watching guide and will not be home for three more days. Josie wanted to explore on her way to Sam’s house and kill time. They go to a zoo and find that the animals look broken. On their way to Seward, she pulled over and let her kids watch a DVD and she drink wine. She started thinking about Carl and how he has never gotten a real job. Later, she started thinking about Evelyn Sandalwood.She recounts the chaos of her typical day and thinks about some of her past patients. Jeremy came to her mind.
Chapter II: Josie is awoken by a state trooper who told her she cannot park where they were. As she drives away from this nice officer, she keeps thinking about Evelyn.They arrive at an RV park and stayed the night.Paul read to Ana as he would normally do until she felt asleep.
Chapter III: The next morning when they wake up, they go to a diner for breakfast. During his chapter, Ana’s illness is explained. She was born premature and only weighted over three pounds. She has sleep apnea, necrotizing enterocolitis, and blood infection. Paul is entirely devoted to her since she was born. At this breakfast place, Ana stood on the toilet and fell. Josie cannot stop thinking about people from her past and got tired of driving. They get to an RV park and to a bay to let the children watch otters swimming. They got invited to a magic show by an old fisherman named Charlie.
Chapter IV: Josie wakes up thinking about Jeremy because she feels responsible for his death. After eating in a cafeteria, they used a public shower. Josie took the kids to a beach near them as spotted a maxi pad covered in feces under a rock. In a skate park, a little boy invited them to play a game about zombis and breaking Paul’s neck. Josie took them and left.
Chapter V: The fifth chapter begins with Josie and the children in their way to Sam’s house. They smelled something and found out Ana has turned the knobs on the gas stove to high and the RV is flooding with gas. At a pizza place, Ana broke the towel rack in the restroom. Paul wondered if Sam was his godmother. Josie told the story of her parents and why she emancipated by age seventeen. As a kid, Josie found comfort with her dentist named Sunny and she was the one that helped her with the emancipation process.
Chapter VI: Josie and the kids arrived at Samantha’s house. They were welcomed with a barbecue and a lot of Sam’s friends including Doug. Doug is a man Sam is dating despite being married. Paul and Ana met Becca and Zoe. They are Sam’s thirteen years old twin daughters. Sam and Josie had not seen each other for over five yards and acted like that did not happened.
Chapter VII: After the barbecue welcome party, the family went back to Sam’s house. At night, when the kids went to sleep, Josie and Sam had a deep conversation and Josie told her all about her drama back in Ohio. She told Sam about the patient that sued her and the whole process with the practice. After opening up to her stepsister, Josephine could not sleep that night thinking how devoted she was to work that she barely had any time for the extracurricular activities of her kids.
Chapter VIII: The first morning at Sam’s house was very quiet. While Sam was at work and her kids in school, Josie takes her children grocery shopping. The emancipated sisters went out to a bar that night. Josie felt disgusted when she found out Sam was having an affair with an elderly man name Robert. Josie left the bar.
Chapter IX: Josie woke up in a hospital after being hit by a truck when she got out of the bar. She asked Sam if the kids knew, but it was still midnight and they were going to be home before they wake up. Josie found out that the nurses called Carl when she was unconscious. They got back to the house and Josie was still in pain. When Sam and the twins left the following morning, Josephine left the house with the children afraid that Carl would know where they were and with self-recriminating thoughts.
Chapter X: Driving away from Samantha’s house, Paul asked his mom about the stitches on her head. The kids wanted to go back to what was their home for the past two nights. The kids also questioned about being on school because it was September already. Another smell came out of the Chateau. This time it was the tank heater has been turned on and Josie told the kids not to touch anything else from the rented car.
Chapter XI: Paul saw a sign for an archery place and asked his mom to stop. Josephine allowed the children to shoot at targets with a bow and some arrows. They met a couple with two children and they all played together. Josie had some drinks. Kyle and Angie, the parents of Ana and Paul’s new friends, stayed at the archery park because Josie was too drunk to drive.
Chapter XII: Josie woke up by Kyle pounding on the door fo the Chateau. They had to evacuate because there was a wildfire approaching. Driving along, she got lost until she found a cabin to stay the night. Paul wrote a note to leave by the door in case the owners were to return.
Chapter XIII: The owners of the cabin did not return and they woke up to a beautiful morning. Josie wanted to leave and continue to embark with their journey with no destination in mind. Paul made a rational argument for staying. At night, a man entered the cabin and yelled that he was going to call the police. Josie gathered her children and ran to the Chateau.
Chapter XIV: After being caught at someone else’s cabin, Josie and the kids ended up at another RV park. They met the proprietor and his name was Jim. He offered a drink to Josie because he thought she needed it. The morning was filled with a lot of sounds and Josie realized they were having a wedding at the events building. The father of the bride approached Josie and her children and invited them to dance at the party.
Chapter XV: Jim, the proprietor of the RV park, asked Josie to haver dinner with him. The dinner took place at Jim’s cabin. He complemented her and the kids since they got to the park. They enjoyed a ride on a bike and on their way back, Josie realized she had a lot of fun that night. She found Jim reading to her children.
Chapter XVI: The chapter begins with Josie driving away from the RV park after Paul caught his mom and Jim having an intimate moment. She felt angry, tired, and knew her behavior was inappropriate. She and Jim have been discussing about Jeremy and his decision to join the marines.
ChapterXVII: Josie was looking for something nice to do to erase Paul’s memory of his mom and Jim having sex. On the road, she saw a roadside attraction that was a replica of the Batmobile and stopped for the children to look at it. Ana kissed her mom and told her she loved her. She got a flat tire and a group of men dressed in orange offered to help her. Later, she realized they were inmates and went to check the money she had hidden at the Chateau. It was still there and Ana was holding a flower given by one of them.
Chapter XVIII: Josie saw a sign for a silver mine and stopped. The mine was closed and they found an empty cabin. She send the kids away so they would not look at her breaking a window. The Chateau is hidden in an empty garage. The children found games in the cabin.
Chapter XIX: In the morning at the empty cabin, Josie found her children playing with a small stray dog. They went outside looking for sticks and the dog followed them. The named the dog Follow. They went for a walk and found a waterfall. Josie allowed the children to drink from it. They stayed at the cabin for days. The children seemed happy and healthy. Josie decided she will call Carl and Sunny the following morning.
Chapter XX: The chapter begins by Josie, Ana, and Paul walking into the town to buy food. There was a parade and they joined. One of the musicians named Cooper invited Josie to sit by him. When they were leaving, she told Cooper she had some music in her head and asked him to get it out in exchange for free dental care. Josie called Sunny and told her about their location. Sunny informed that Evelyn have died.
Chapter XXI: Josie and the children went to Cooper’s house. They played piano and the music together. Other musicians joined them at Cooper’s and she let Paul take notes. Ana began to dance and asked Paul to join her. Many of the musicians also danced. The sound of sirens interrupted the music.
Chapter XXII: At Cooper’s house, the music was interrupted by sirens because they needed to be evacuated. Josie and the kids were taken to a high school that was being used as a shelter. She knew the cabin and the Chateau in the garage will be lost to the fire. She is exposed to the change of Ana when she is spotted helping a smaller child drink water from a fountain. She called Carl and found out he knew they were in Alaska and was not mad. Josie took the kids to walk near a river. They put warm stones on Josie’s body. When they removed the stones, she felt free.
Chapter XXIII: Josie, Ana, Paul set out for the lake. Paul draw a map that appeared on a sign. Thunders were extremely loud and Josie feared a lighting would strike a tree near them. On their way to seek shelter, Josie hurt her back and Ana injured her leg. Josie was happy she has raised such brave kids. They get to a cabin and Josie knew she was right where she needed to be.
Chapter XXIV: For the last chapter, only five words were stated.” But then there is tomorrow”.
Themes and Symbolism
Warm Rocks: In chapter XXII, Ana and Paul put warm stones on Josie’s body. When they removed them, she felt free. They represented a weight from Josie’s past that she needs to let go.
Follow: Follow was the dog Paul and Ana found. It represented stability .When then dog joined the little family when they were living in the cabin, Josie began to feel stability.
Evelyn: Evelyn was Josie’s patient who got cancer and whose family had filed a lawsuit against Josie. Evelyn represented failure. Josephine failed to see a tumor in Evelyn’s mouth.
Jeremy: Jeremy was another patient and he represented another failure. She believed to have failed to stop this young guy from going into the military. She took responsibility for his death.
Yellow Flower: When they got a flat tire on the road and the inmates offered to help. One of them gave a flower to Ana. Throughout the novel, Josie had self-recriminating thoughts and this was a sign of good in the world.
Sunny: Sunny was Josie’s dentist and the one that helped her with the emancipation process. For Josie, Sunny represented peace.
The Chateau: The rented car represented Josie’s feelings and her need to run away from her life in Ohio. Josie felt she needed to move forward and search for new opportunities but there was something holding her back. When they were at the shelter and she knew the car was going to be lost on fire, she needed to let things go.
References
Eggers, Dave. Heroes of the Frontier: a Novel. Penguin Books, 2017.
“Heroes of the Frontier Summary & Study Guide.” BookRags, BookRags, www.bookrags.com/studyguide-heroes-of-the-frontier/#gsc.tab=0.
“North to Alaska in Dave Eggers' New 'Heroes of the Frontier'.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 22 July 2016, www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-eggers-frontier-20160711-snap-story.html.
“Dave Eggers.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Apr. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Eggers#Novels_and_Novellas.