49 pages 1 hour read

Laura Dave

Eight Hundred Grapes

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Parts 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: “The Last Harvest” - Part 5: “An Unnamed Vineyard”

Part 4, Chapter 43 Summary: “The Waiting Room”

The Ford family races to the hospital, foregoing emergency services and opting to use their own cars to get there faster. They spend hours in the hospital, all of them growing anxious and restless, until finally a doctor announces that Dan has had a second heart attack but is responding to treatment. The Ford children were not aware of the first heart attack, which happened during a car accident years ago. When the doctor tells them to leave Dan to rest, Jen ignores him and goes to stay with her husband.

Part 4, Chapter 44 Summary: “Sebastopol, California. 2009”

The story returns to the year 2009, when Dan is feeling neglected while Jen joins a band and a musical theater group. When Jen brings up the fact that Dan has lost the ability to do anything but work in the vineyard, he goes to an extreme and proposes to sell the vineyard. When he doesn’t seem to understand what’s making her worried and frustrated, Jen leaves him behind, moving further and further away from him and their relationship.

Part 4, Chapter 45 Summary: “The Details”

While everyone else goes to take care of the children and the vineyard, Georgia stays in the waiting room to wait for her mother to return. When she does, Jen tells Georgia that Dan is showing signs of his old self: more annoyed at not being able to work in the vineyard than anything else.