67 pages • 2 hours read
Taming 7
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.
Prologue-Chapter 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of rape, sexual violence, child abuse, child sexual abuse, death by suicide, self-harm, substance and alcohol use, substance dependency, sexual content, and cursing.
Prologue Summary: “Don’t Take the Girl—Claire: May 1995”
Five-year-old Claire Biggs sits in the church for a funeral. The boy she considers her best friend, Gerard “Gibsie” Gibson, lost his father and his sister, who drowned while his family was out with Claire’s on a boat. Gibsie only survived because Claire’s father, Pete, jumped into the water to save him.
Claire and Gibsie walk to the grave together holding hands. Overwhelmed by the sight of the holes, Gibsie runs away. Claire finds him, and the two sit together and talk. Gibsie is angry that he now has to live with his mother, Sadhbh; her boyfriend, Keith; and his son, Mark. However, Claire reminds him how happy she is that he survived.
When Sadhbh comes to find Gibsie, he insists that he does not want to go home and be around everyone. Gibsie then has a panic attack, scaring Claire when he says that he is “drowning.”
Later that night, Claire and Gibsie hold hands while sleeping in Claire’s brother Hugh’s bed. Gibsie wakes up and tells Claire that he had a bad dream. He is afraid to live with Keith and Mark, feeling as though he is “all alone” now. However, Claire insists that he will always have her.
