Summerizer

Chapt 1-2

It is the summer of 1955, and ten-year-old Toby and his mother, Rosemary are driving from Florida to Utah in their car. They are on their way to Utah to make their fortune by mining uranium ore, and to escape Roy, an abusive ex-husband of Rosemary's who she has taken up with again. The car overheats and they stop to let it cool. While Rosemary and Toby are waiting, they see a big truck careen over the road's guardrails and fall hundreds of feet into the river gorge below. For the remainder of the day, Rosemary dotes on Toby and he takes advantage of her sentimentality to buy Indian souvenirs. Toby and Rosemary have faith that their luck will change for the better once they arrive in Utah. Toby and his mother find out that they are too months late. Toby wishes to change himself, and promises not to be the same boy he was in Florida. Toby wants to change his name to Jack, after the author Jack London. Toby's father, who is now married to a rich woman in Connecticut, does not want Toby to change his name or become a Catholic, and claims that Toby will be breaking with family tradition. This tradition, Toby later learns, is a lie. Toby feels that by shedding the name his father gave him he will shed any attachment to his father, who has never provided for Toby or his mother.