52 pages • 1 hour read
J.R. MoehringerThe Tender Bar
J.R. MoehringerNonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | YA | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaChapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 14-16 Summary
The author begins Chapter 14 by explaining that after his summer in Manhasset with the men from Dickens, he returned to Arizona to live with his mother. He soon learned that she had been dating a man named Winston with whom she seemed to be in love, which concerned and annoyed Moehringer. He felt his mother’s boyfriend was bored by him, and eventually Winston became resentful and even competitive with Moehringer. When his mother’s relationship with Winston ended, the author felt relieved at no longer having to see him, but he also suffered guilt at the thought that he was the reason his mother could not experience happiness and a loving relationship.
In Chapter 15, Moehringer shares the immense financial stress he and his mother were under by the time he was ready to begin high school. With mounting debts, his mother declared bankruptcy. To soothe himself from this stressful situation, he would walk to a mall bookstore where he browsed their diverse selection. He asked if he could work at the store, and, although he was only 13 years old, he was hired to work for 20 hours a week.
While the work was boring and lonely, Moehringer eventually got to know the reclusive and unusual men, Bill and Bud, who ran the store. They introduced Moehringer to a wider variety of literature, especially famous authors from the East Coast. Bill and Bud even tried to help him navigate his teen years in Arizona by changing his Long Island accent and giving him fashion and music advice. The men strongly encouraged the author to consider applying to Yale University, which, they assured him, would make him a “renaissance man.” They urged him to not be dissuaded by fear but guided by it.
He then recounts how he, his grandmother, and his mother took a trip to see Yale University one summer. While excited to be there, he was daunted by the history and prestige evident in the campus. He felt that Yale represented the “peaceable world” had been seeking, but the visit doubled his anxiety that he would never be accepted or be able to afford to go.
Chapters 14-16 Analysis
In these chapters, Moehringer continues his theme of anxiety and mental distress. The ever-changing landscape of his mother’s personal and financial life burdened him greatly. However, because he wanted to be the good, strong man his grandma encouraged him to be, he did not share these stresses with his mother or express them at all, instead harboring them as constant worries.
For example, he was concerned that in focusing on his dislike of Winston he had become distracted from his first priority, which was taking care of his mother. Moehringer’s grandmother continued to urge him to care for his mother, which weighed on him emotionally, and he became so overwhelmed with worry that it scared him.
He also develops his theme of belonging by detailing how he was not socially accepted at his Arizona high school. The author explains that, picking up on his Long Island accent, the other students teased him and picked fights with him. He observes that “[w]ords, which had helped me break into the men’s circle at Gilgo, kept me from fitting in at my new school” (104).
The author weaves humor into nearly every page, even while many of his memories are somber ones. When discussing seeing the film A Star Is Born with his mother, he describes the plot as “Barbara Streisand and Kris Kristofferson broke up and made up and broke up again, for no apparent reason, until Kristofferson mercifully died” (112). Recounting his problems with school bullies, who mocked him for his pronunciation of the word “water,” he quips, “What was the big deal? There wasn’t any water in Arizona anyway” (112).
Moehringer continues to build detailed character descriptions, using original imagery to convey their idiosyncrasies. For example, he describes one of his bosses at the bookstore:
Bud, when excited, would sniff his fist, as if it were a prize-winning rose. He also had a habit of straightening his dandruff-flecked hair by bringing his left hand all the way over to the right side of his head, like an orangutan, a maneuver that exposed the perennial wet spot in his armpit. He clipped his fingernails compulsively, and the parings lay scattered everywhere. I once found myself handing a customer two quarters and a crescent of Bud’s thumbnail (115).
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