Other Voices, Other Rooms- chapters 5-8

For my second blog, I read chapters 5 through 8 of my book “Other Voices, Other Rooms”. At the beginning of chapter 5, Joel sends a letter to his friend Sammy Silverstein. After writing this letter, he realizes that this letter was full of lies. He ends up send a letter to his Aunt, and talks about how he does not like the Landing and that he is being kept from seeing his father. Joel then goes and drops off the letter, sees Zoo and Little Sunshine. He then decides to go see Florabel and Idabel. When Joel gets back from visiting the girls, he sees that the mailbox flag is still up. He opens up the mailbox and sees that his letters are not there and that his coins are on the ground by his feet. Joel here’s two gun shots nearby. Zoo cuts Joel’s hair, and told him that she was the one who shot the gun. Randolph hits Joel with a red ball, and tells him to bring up a glass of water. When Joel gets upstairs, he finds Randolph and Amy sitting together on a bed. This bed belonged to Mr. Samson. Idabel, Henry, and Joel go fishing, and they share a cigarette. Joel tries to kiss Idabel, but Idabel wrestles with him and Joel lands on Idabel’s favorite glasses. Randolph paints a picture of Joel and talks about what happened to his father. Joel finds out that his father had been shot by Randolph, but on accident.  Joel’s father got married to Amy in New Orleans. After being married, Ed (Joel’s father) and Amy went back to the landing. Amy then took over Ed’s life after moving to the landing. Chapter 8 ends with Randolph telling Joel that everything on the landing will be ok.

I like these chapters because we finally find out what happened to Joel’s father. Also, I find these chapters interesting because Joel is finally trying to give the landing a chance, as he becomes closer with everyone who lives there.