Godless Summary

For one of my books, I chose Godless, by Pete Hautman. Jason Bock, a large but generally friendly teenager, is trying to figure out what to do with his summer. His parents, especially his dad, are very Catholic, but Jason himself thinks of the Catholic religion as a waste of time and doesn't believe in any of it at all. One day while he is walking around with his shy, strange but very smart friend Shin, they run into Henry Stagg. Henry is the kind of kid that you see as unpredictably crazy, and even though he isn't big or strong, you can easily be afraid of him. One thing leads to another and Jason finds himself on his back after being punched in the face, staring up at the town water tower. He has a mini epiphany, thinking about how without water, life does not continue, and how in a way water is god over humans. And what controls the water? Water towers. Jason and Shin decide to start their own religion worshiping water towers. As quickly as it started, the religion they called Chutengodianism began to grow with both members and importance to them. Dan, the preacher's son, joins, as well as Magda Price, a girl who Jason secretly has a crush on, and even Henry Stagg. They all appoint each other mock titles, such as "Chief Kahuna," and "High Priestess." Though they pretend to take it seriously, they all know that water towers are not gods and the whole thing is kind of a joke. Shin, however, starts getting creepily into the whole idea of the religion, writing pages and pages of their new bible, obsessing over how important it is, and even seriously claiming that when he talks about it and writes about it, the water tower is speaking through him. One night, all the members sneak out and meet up at the water tower to have a "midnight mass," by climbing the water tower and having the meeting on top of "the godhead." All of them make it up fine, except Shin, who was scared of heights. While they were already up waiting for Shin, he freaked out and went home instead. When they were on top of the tower, unpredictable Henry pulled out a hacksaw and broke off the lock to get inside of the water tower. All of them end up swimming inside of the water tower, but when they come back out, things start to go wrong. Because of the combination of the smooth metal of the the tank and his wet body, Henry slips and falls towards the edge of the tank. They try to pull him back up, but he falls. Luckily, instead of falling to his death, Henry lands on the catwalk around thirty feet below, but still breaks his leg severely. As they rush down to help him, the police show up and they all get taken away. After the incident, the members all seem to go their separate ways. While Magda and Henry seem to start having a thing, Jason sits at home, grounded and jealous, Shin is constantly working on the new bible and trying to figure out how he can get to the top of the godhead, and Tom is never even heard from. After a while of this, Jason is laying in bed one night looking at the water tower out his window when it a lightning storm brews up. With each flash of lightning, he can see the silhouette of a person on top of the tower. Realizing it had to be Shin, Jason sneaks out to try and save him. Once he gets up the tower, Jason can't convince Shin to come down, and instead, they go inside the tower once again because if they are in the water the lightning will not hit them, instead just running down the exterior metal. After around three hours of waiting for the storm to die, Shin still won't leave, so Jason has no choice but to leave and call the police and fire department to get Shin down. Eventually things calm down again and slowly get back to normal, but Jason learns a valuable lesson. While sitting in the hospital because Henry had hit him across the head with his crutch after Henry angrily provoked him, Jason realizes that whether it is Catholicism, Chutengodianism, or anything at all, faith is something that is valuable to have in life. In the end, he talks about how he envies those who truly believe in something, and how he wants to believe in something, anything as long as he truly believes it.