An Abundance of Katherines: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

In the morning, Colin realizes that his life in Chicago has sheltered him from the understanding that the rooster crowing at dawn is more than a literary and cinematic trope. This morning, a rooster in fact begins crowing well before dawn. Colin feels tired but good until he remembers his breakup and finds that he has no missed calls on his cell phone. Colin spends the next couple hours in bed, listening to the intermingling of the rooster’s crows and Hassan’s morning prayers, thinking about Katherine XIX, and making anagrams of “rooster.”

Around 7:00 a.m., Colin goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Hassan is there taking a shower, and they discuss how the Wells family is strange. Hassan tells Colin that Hollis has a billion-dollar house but is asleep on the couch watching the Home Shopping Network. He doesn’t mind, though, because Hollis is impressed by both him and Colin, and Hassan will be making enough money this summer to survive unemployed for years. Colin makes a comment about Hassan’s lack of ambition, and Hassan tells him to lay off him about college. They decide that their code word for when one of them has gone too far teasing the other will be “Dingleberries.”

Colin begins anagramming “dingleberries,” and Hassan says maybe that’s why Katherine XIX dumped him. Colin responds, “Dingleberries.” Hassan changes the subject to breakfast. On the way down the stairs, Colin wonders why Hollis really wanted to hire them. Hassan jokes that he has a special bond with Hollis because they are both fat. Colin tries to insist that Hassan is simply “pudgy,” and Hassan brings Colin’s attention to his “man-tits.” Colin assents that he is at least an A-cup, and Hassan smiles “with great satisfaction.”

Hassan and Lindsey watch The Today Show and Colin reads from a Lord Byron anthology he brought with him while Hollis gets ready. Lindsey asks him what he is reading. He holds it up, and she reads “Don Juan” off the cover. He corrects her pronunciation—it’s pronounced “Don Jew-un” rather than “Don Wan.” Hassan says this is not interesting, but Lindsey is more aggravated that uninterested.

Hollis comes downstairs and explains that the project the two boys will be helping with is an oral history of Gutshot, “for future generations.” There have been issues with gossip about the interviews, so Colin and Hassan, who are outsiders, and Lindsey, who everyone trusts, will be conducting the interviews from now on. Hollis wants six hours of “real history” on tape each day. When she says she is doing this project for her grandkids, not a gossip fest, Lindsey says, “Bullshit.” Hollis tells her to put a quarter in the swear jar. Lindsey swears three more times because she only has a dollar bill. As Hollis sends the three teenagers out the door, she says that she will have The Other Colin, “Lindsey’s [sigh] boyfriend” open the store because he hasn’t been showing up to work half the time lately.

Lindsey, frustrated with Hollis’s tone with regard to her boyfriend, asks Hassan in the Hearse to drop her off at the store so she can see TOC. Hassan insists that she is dating TOC because his friend, who can say “unique” in nine languages, is “clearly the Primary Colin.” Colin feels affection toward Hassan and feels like some medicine has momentarily been applied to the hole in his gut. Lindsey concedes to being dropped off at the store after they do their work for the day.

Lindsey leads them to the house of a man named Starnes, who greets them at the door and appears to be missing his lower jaw. In response to Colin’s staring, he explains that he lost the jaw to cancer. The smell of the house reminds Colin of Katherine XIX’s basement, and he loses himself in the feeling of his aching gut.

In a section subtitled, “The Beginning (of the End),” Colin recalls how Katherine XIX became the XIX. He had been wanting to kiss her for a while but was afraid of rejection, which according to him, boys face at a higher rate than girls. They went to Café Sel Marie for their third date in a row even though Colin only liked the idea of coffee. They went back to Katherine’s basement to watch The Royal Tanenbaums, a movie about a family of prodigies. Colin liked the movie but distinguished himself from the characters by emphasizing that he had not been born good at everything but rather had worked hard to be a prodigy. He showed off his anagramming skills for Katherine. She wanted to know what else he was good at. He took his opening to show her how good he was at kissing.