50 pages • 1-hour read
Pop
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Chapters 1-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Marcus is a high-school student whose parents recently divorced, and Marcus has just moved to a new state with his mom to get away from his overbearing father. Marcus’s father gifted him a Vespa scooter as an incentive to stay with him, and though Marcus dislikes the man, he keeps the Vespa because he loves the speed it offers. In preparation for the upcoming football tryouts at his new school, Marcus has spent most of his time at the local Three Alarm Park, practicing. On the fourth day, a middle-aged man named Charlie joins him, calls him “Mac,” and easily catches one of Marcus’s throws. Despite his age, Charlie is the most amazing athlete Marcus has ever seen. The two play a fast and furious game of tossing and catching until Marcus misses a throw and the football breaks the window of a car in the parking lot. Seeing the damage, Charlie takes off, leaving Marcus to marvel that an adult is “fleeing the scene like an irresponsible kid” (9).
Chapter 2 Summary
When Marcus attends what he thinks is the football tryouts for his new school’s team, he’s welcomed by the team telling him there aren’t tryouts. The team had a perfect season last year, and they’ve already filled open spots with guys they know are solid players. Marcus argues he’s good enough to play on the team. The head cheerleader, Alyssa, sticks up for Marcus, so the coach decides to give him a try, much to the irritation of the current quarterback, Troy.
Marcus performs better than anyone expects. The coach makes him backup quarterback, meaning Marcus will practice with the team but won’t play in games unless Troy is unable to play. As Marcus leaves, he notices Alyssa and Troy glaring at one another. The two broke up not long ago, and Alyssa gives Marcus attention to make Troy jealous. She knows her football, and she tells Marcus that he’s a great thrower but chokes when in danger of being tackled. The analysis is spot-on, and Marcus feels uncertain because “if even the head cheerleader could see that, he was in big trouble” (22).
Chapter 3 Summary
Next time Marcus is at the park, Charlie shows up. Marcus realizes Charlie could be the solution to his football problems because “if [he] can take a hit from [Charlie], [he] can take one from anybody” (24). The two exchange tackles for nearly an hour, and Marcus is amazed by Charlie’s boundless energy. When they take a break, Marcus hounds Charlie about the broken window. Charlie assures Marcus he’ll pay if the car’s owner ever gets in touch. He then takes Marcus up the street to the gas station to get ice for Marcus’s elbow. Charlie walks right into the store, grabs the ice, and walks out, earning only a chuckle from the woman behind the counter. After giving Marcus the ice, Charlie tells him they’ll meet up tomorrow at the usual time before loping away. Marcus ends the chapter wondering what the usual time is and what kind of status Charlie has in the town.
Chapter 4 Summary
Marcus’s school football team continues to shun him, largely because Troy is jealous that Alyssa pays attention to Marcus. Meanwhile, Marcus tries to nail down a usual time with Charlie, but Charlie shows up whenever he feels like it. Though this annoys Marcus, he accepts the inconvenience because Charlie is helping him get over his fear of being tackled.
After one practice with Charlie, a police officer and the owner of the car with the broken window confront Marcus in the parking lot. Marcus accidentally gave the wrong phone number to contact him, and the car’s owner has been trying to track him down. When Marcus’s mom joins Marcus and the cop at the station, it’s made clear that the entire situation was a mix-up. Marcus explains what happened, leaving Charlie’s name out of it, and reassures his mom he’ll split the cost.
Charlie arrives home and tells his kids that the guy he was hanging out with at the park got arrested. Chelsea, his daughter, is concerned that her dad’s condition is getting worse, but Troy, her brother, shrugs this off.
Chapter 5 Summary
While wandering around school searching for his history classroom, Marcus runs into Alyssa. The two discuss the football team and how Troy’s entire life is about living up to the expectations people have of him after winning last year. When Alyssa kisses Marcus, they are interrupted by Chelsea, who accuses Alyssa of stringing Troy along. Marcus asks if Alyssa and Troy are really broken up or if she’s trying to make him jealous. Alyssa explains that Troy changed a few months ago. All at once, he broke up with her, stopped having people over to his house, and started spending more time alone.
When Marcus brings the check for the broken window to the car’s owner, the man rants about how Marcus is an irresponsible brat who gets his mom to pay for things. Charlie witnesses the exchange and decides the man needs to be taught a lesson. Since the man owns a pest-control business, Charlie and Marcus will spread sugar, honey, and chocolate syrup around the establishment to attract bugs. Though Marcus feels this isn’t right, he goes along with the plan because he “felt strangely honored that his companion was so dead set on revenge on his behalf” (49).
Chapter 6 Summary
Marcus wakes early the next morning overcome with guilt and fear about what he did the day before. Marcus rushes to the exterminator’s, where he finds bugs crawling both inside and outside the store. Marcus retreats to the park to wait for Charlie, but as opening time for the store grows closer and Charlie doesn’t show, Marcus gets nervous. Meanwhile, Charlie drives Chelsea to pick up her phone from the repair shop. In the few minutes it takes Chelsea to go inside, Charlie disappears. Chelsea runs after him and finds him with Marcus watching the exterminator fend off the insects in his shop.
Chelsea is outraged that Marcus got her dad involved in something like this. Marcus argues that it was all Charlie’s idea. Chelsea drags her dad away, leaving Marcus to wonder why she’s taking charge of her dad. In a flash, Marcus also realizes that Charlie is Troy’s dad, which infuriates him. While Marcus’s dad has never done anything but bark orders and be completely assured of his own superiority, it figured that “a jerk like Troy got the world’s greatest natural athlete for a father” (59). Marcus then realizes that Charlie’s name is familiar.
Chapter 7 Summary
A quick internet search leads Marcus to Charlie’s NFL career, where he was known as a tenacious linebacker with a mean tackle and an aggressive playing style. After playing for 14 years, Charlie retired, and Marcus is amazed the guy is still so fit and skilled after a nearly 30-year break. At football practice, Marcus gets tackled by a linebacker. When Marcus hits the ground, it hurts, but he realizes that if Charlie had tackled him like that, Marcus would be “five yards away, still vibrating, waiting for the fireworks display in his brain to come into focus” (65). During a break, Marcus tries to tell Troy how cool Charlie is. Troy laughs bitterly and orders Marcus to stay away from his dad.
After practice, Marcus overhears Troy and Alyssa arguing about him. Alyssa sticks up for Marcus’s football abilities, and Troy storms away. Marcus asks Alyssa why Troy is so weird about Charlie. She explains Troy and Charlie used to be close, but she doesn’t know why they aren’t anymore. In the parking lot, Marcus finds the police officer sitting on his Vespa. He’s there to bring Marcus in for vandalizing the exterminator’s store.
Chapters 1-7 Analysis
The chance meeting between Marcus and Charlie, in Chapter 1, is the inciting incident that sets the novel’s plot in motion. The relationship between these two characters occupies the novel’s center—a friendship in which the roles of mentor and protégé are continually in flux. Charlie’s greater experience in football makes him a worthy mentor to the young Marcus as he seeks to improve his game, but as Marcus learns more about Charlie’s CTE, their roles begin to switch, and Marcus becomes a caretaker and mentor to Charlie. This shift begins early on, when the two accidentally break a car window and Charlie reverts to child-like behavior by running away. Marcus’s decision to own the mistake shows that, despite being a teenager, he is willing to take adult-level accountability. This decision foreshadows the role Marcus takes with Charlie as the story progresses. This role forces Marcus to shoulder greater responsibility than he has ever faced before, demonstrating the power of Caregiving as a Crucible of Empathy, as Marcus’s relationship with Charlie hones his ability to imagine another person’s experience.
As dementia gradually unravels Charlie’s sense of self, the novel explores How Legacy Shapes Identity. Though Charlie hasn’t played in the NFL for decades, his entire identity centers around being a football player, and as a result, he still has the skills he possessed years ago. Marcus doesn’t know Charlie’s past yet, but he can still sense Charlie’s love for the game and commitment to playing offense, showing how Charlie’s legacy feeds into who he is. His memories of football are so strong that they supersede his present experience. This phenomenon both supports and hinders him—keeping him in touch with a stable sense of self as his dementia progresses, but also keeping him trapped in the past.
While Marcus takes responsibility for the football incident in Chapter 1, his decisions regarding Charlie in the next few chapters highlight that, despite being responsible, Marcus is still a kid who makes mistakes. The decision to spread sugary substances around the exterminator’s shop is Charlie’s, but Marcus goes along with it because the exterminator reminds Marcus of his dad—pushy, arrogant, and convinced of his own superiority. Marcus knows that what he’s doing is wrong, but his frustration with his dad allows him to go along with the plan. Since Marcus doesn’t yet know about Charlie’s condition, having Charlie’s support makes Marcus feel welcome and less alone while the football team—Marcus’s only other social outlet—ostracizes him. Marcus’s need for belonging keeps him from realizing that Charlie doesn’t act like an adult.
Charlie does serve as an effective mentor in the realm of football, and Marcus’s improvement while training with him illustrates The Importance of Direct Experience as a Source of Knowledge. With Charlie’s help, Marcus slowly overcomes his fear of being tackled. As Charlie tackles him repeatedly, Marcus finds that the reality of this experience is far less scary than he imagined. This realization is an early lesson for Marcus in the importance of first-hand knowledge, and it lays a foundation for his later discoveries about the severity of Charlie’s condition. For the moment, though, it prevents him from reckoning with Charlie’s irresponsible behavior: He knows that Charlie makes a lot of poor choices, but he doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to risk losing his personal coach.
The characters of Pop keep secrets from one another, and much of the conflict relies on dramatic irony arising from what the characters do and do not know about each other at any given moment. The early relationship between Marcus and Charlie is defined by what Marcus doesn’t know about Charlie’s CTE. What Marcus takes as kinship is actually Charlie reliving his teen years and mistaking Marcus for a different person. Charlie’s family also keeps Charlie’s condition a secret from everyone, and this has an adverse effect on both Troy and Chelsea. At the outset of the book, Troy is angry and closed-off. Initially, Marcus believes this is because Troy views him as a threat, both on and off the football field. Marcus’s skill as a quarterback matches Troy’s, and Alyssa intentionally flirts with Marcus to make Troy jealous. Since Marcus believes Troy is just arrogant, he leans into playing football and flirting with Alyssa. Marcus doesn’t understand that Troy’s anger is a cover for his hurt over Charlie and the fear that the same thing will happen to him if he takes too many hits playing football.
Chelsea also struggles under the weight of her father’s condition, and she is determined to keep Charlie’s situation a secret to preserve his dignity in the town. As seen in Chapter 4, when Charlie takes a bag of ice from a store without paying, people forgive Charlie’s behavior because he is a local legend with a reputation for eccentric behavior. Chelsea fears this will change if people learn the truth, and since she understands how much her dad’s reputation means to him, she refuses to put that in jeopardy. Though Marcus doesn’t know about Charlie’s condition in these chapters, he does something similar regarding the incident with the car window. Like Chelsea, Marcus understands Charlie has a reputation, but since Marcus doesn’t know about the illness, he simply believes he is upholding a famous pillar of the community by not naming Charlie as an accomplice. At this point in the story, Marcus’s decision is a show of loyalty, but as things progress, Marcus’s choice to keep Charlie’s involvement secret becomes a liability, both for him and for Charlie. Altogether, Troy, Chelsea, and Marcus highlight the internal and external problems that arise from keeping secrets or refusing to acknowledge uncomfortable truths.
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