All Fours Chapter 7 Summary – The Troll Himself

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

After finishing her motel room renovation, the narrator stays indoors for two days, feeling lost. A Memorial Day parade outside triggers a memory of the traumatic birth of her child, Sam, who suffered a fetal-maternal hemorrhage and spent seventeen days in the NICU. The crisis temporarily reignited a passionate “wartime romance” with her husband, Harris, but that intensity faded once Sam stabilized. Emerging from the motel, she returns to the Hertz lot and resumes walking with Davey. She becomes sexually obsessed with him, masturbating to explicit fantasies. A new, painful awareness dawns: she is too old for him. This realization connects to family history—her grandmother and aunt both jumped from a window. She nearly checks out of the motel but, hearing the four o’clock gong, stays. Davey later invites her to meet him at a bar at eight.

Key Events

The narrator spends two days in her renovated room, eating only trail mix and watching TV, feeling disconnected.
A Memorial Day parade erupts outside; she lies in bed listening.
Her husband Harris texts “Happy May 31” – Sam’s due date – triggering a flashback.
Flashback: Sam’s birth via emergency C‑section after a fetal-maternal hemorrhage; Sam appears paper-white and is rushed to NICU.
The narrator and Harris share an intense, “wartime romance” during Sam’s seventeen‑day hospital stay, but the closeness evaporates once Sam is safe.
After the parade ends, she eats at a Japanese restaurant, then walks to Hertz and finds Davey.
Davey gives her a “local’s tour” of Monrovia/Arcadia, talks about his unnamed “calling,” and they become walking companions.
The narrator’s sexual fantasies about Davey escalate; she masturbates imagining explicit sex with him.
She realizes she is “too old” for him – a first-time experience of being past the age of desirability for a man she wants.
Reflection on her grandmother Esther and aunt Ruthie, who both committed suicide by jumping from the same window.
She speaks with Jordi on the phone, admits the crush is different, dismisses Jordi’s suggestion to mention Claire.
Decides to check out, tells Skip she’s leaving, but when the four o’clock gong sounds she changes her mind and rushes to Hertz.
Davey says he can’t walk because Claire needs him, but invites her to meet at the Buccaneer bar at eight.

Character Development

The narrator: Reveals the depth of her past trauma surrounding Sam’s birth and the temporary but powerful bond with Harris. Her current obsession with Davey forces her to confront aging, desire, and her place as a “funny little wife.” She oscillates between wanting to flee home and being unable to resist the pull of Davey.
Harris: Mostly absent in the present, but the flashback shows his role as her wartime lover and partner during the NICU ordeal. Their shared salute and unspoken understanding contrast with the emotional distance that now exists.
Davey: Remains opaque and playful. His curiosity about the border line and his enjoyment of simple pleasures (like the fence smell) draw the narrator in. He shows no awareness of her renovation or her profession, treating her as a neutral companion.
Jordi: Serves as the narrator’s confidante. She tries to offer perspective, noting the narrator is good at compartmentalizing, and suggests bringing up Claire to keep things aboveboard.

Themes, Symbols, and Motifs

Trauma and its aftershocks: Sam’s birth is the defining trauma of the narrator’s life. The anniversary reopens the wound, and her present behavior – hiding, eating alone, fixating on a younger man – can be read as a coping mechanism.
Desire and age: The narrator’s first experience of being “too old” for someone she wants is a pivotal reckoning. She mourns the loss of her desirability and links it to the suicides of her grandmother and aunt, suggesting that desire was their “main thrill.”
The recurrent three: Earlier Jordi introduced the folk tale “Soria Moria Castle,” where three is the number of body, soul, spirit. The narrator insists that in her case “the troll himself” — the boy — matters, rejecting allegorical interpretation.
Mortality and fall: The narrator imagines life as an arc: rising, peaking in middle age, then falling. The image of her ancestors jumping from a window literalizes the fall, but the narrator is still falling, still living.
Surveillance and secrets: She lies to everyone about being in New York, and Jordi’s accidental meeting with Harris reminds her of the risk of exposure.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is the emotional core of the novel. It lays bare the narrator’s deepest wound — the traumatic birth of her child — and shows how that unresolved pain makes her susceptible to a reckless, age‑inappropriate obsession. The flashback to Sam’s birth is the most harrowing scene in the book, and the narrator’s reflection on desire and aging gives the story a philosophical gravity beyond a simple midlife crisis. Her choice to stay in Monrovia rather than go home sets the stage for the affair to come.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does the narrator compare her attraction to Davey to a religious experience?
She describes being alone with his chest as a “hallowed moment,” like being with Jesus. This language elevates her lust from mere physical desire to something sacred and overwhelming — which makes its impossibility more devastating.

2. How does the memory of Sam’s birth shape the narrator’s present behavior?
The memory triggers a sense of limbo and disconnection. After the crisis, the wartime romance with Harris ended abruptly; now she seeks intensity in a new, forbidden attraction. The trauma leaves her emotionally raw and open to the kind of thrill that momentarily makes her feel alive.

3. What does the narrator mean when she says she “had not participated in the infuriating pleasure of wanting a real and specific body on Earth”?
She recognizes that her previous attractions were cerebral, focused on men’s talent or power. Now she experiences pure, bodily desire for Davey’s physical being — a raw wanting that she never allowed herself before, and that feels both liberating and tragic because it comes too late.