Chinese Handcuffs

Set in Washington State, Chris Crutcher’s young adult novel, Chinese Handcuffs (1989), tells the story of high school junior Dillon Hemingway, who is grappling with the recent suicide of his older brother. As he delves deeper into the reasons for his brother's devastating decision, Dillon's friendship with a fellow athlete provides him with an opportunity at redemption. Most of the novel is told through Dillon's journal entries.

In the aftermath of his brother Preston's death, Dillon finds solace in running and training for triathlons. He is also a trainer for the girls' basketball team at his school. There he meets and befriends Jennifer "Jen" Lawless, the star of the team and a standout athlete. Dillon is attracted to Jen, but he also feels loyalty toward Preston's girlfriend, Stacy.

The journal entries reveal snapshots of Dillon's relationship with his brother. In one, Dillon recounts a violent experience. After the neighbor’s cat attacks the boys' dog, Dillon and Preston literally beat the cat to death. Though they feel bad about the incident later, the brothers long carry the notion that the cat only got what it deserved. The brutality of this scene underscores the primal emotional drives and extremes of thinking that would later mar Dillon and Preston's lives.



After graduating from high school, Preston saves his money and buys a motorcycle. He sets out to join the Warlocks, a local biker gang. The initiation process involves doing an extremely risky stunt with a motorcycle. Preston crashes during the stunt, losing both of his legs. Unable to deal with the pain and the crushing reality of his suddenly limited options in life, Preston turns to drugs. Becoming a full-fledged addict, he wreaks havoc on his family. It reaches such a point of chaos and unmanageability that Dillon's mother and sister abandon Dillon, Preston, and their father, moving out of the family home to get away from Preston's instability.

One night, Preston stays out partying, and when he comes home the next day, still buzzed from the night before, he and Dillon go target shooting. There they get into an intense conversation in which Preston admits frustration that Dillon comes off as so perfect in the eyes of the rest of the world. He also confesses that he feels guilty about his role in the gang rape of a girl at a biker bar. This makes him think of the incident with the cat when he and Dillon were younger, and he states that he never wants to feel that badly again—and if he did, he would kill himself. His role in the rape, however, is causing him that same level of distress. Seeing that Preston is considering suicide while they have two loaded guns in their hands, Dillon frantically tries to talk his brother out of it. It isn't enough, however, and Dillon stands by helplessly, watching as his brother points the gun at himself and pulls the trigger.

In the present, Jen suffers a concussion during one of her basketball games. Doctors tell her she will need to stay in the hospital overnight for observation, but she refuses; she doesn't want to leave her little sister, Dawn, at home without her. Her refusal eventually reveals dark secrets about Jen's family.



After her grandfather's death when she just a little girl, her father had started molesting her. Once she understood that this was inappropriate, she told her mother, who didn't believe her. She then told a teacher, and the police arrested her father. Child Protective Services removed Jen from the home, and she went through counseling before being reunited with her mother. Now her mother is married to a different man, a wealthy and powerful attorney named T.B., and he too is sexually assaulting Jen. She fears that if she is away from home, he will turn his attention to Dawn. She has reported him in the past, but he used her past trauma as justification that her judgment couldn't be trusted, and nothing came of the report. After that incident, he threatened to kill Jen's mother and Dawn if she tried to report him again.

The principal at Dillon's school endlessly bullies Dillon, intimating he will end up like his brother. Pushed to the breaking point, Dillon stands up to the principal, and the principal suspends him. During his time away from school, he hangs out with Stacy and her adopted brother. Her family adopted the boy from a cousin in North Dakota. Shortly after Preston committed suicide, Stacy had gone to North Dakota for several months. One day, when the three of them are having ice cream, Dillon notices something familiar about Stacy's brother. He later learns that the little boy is not Stacy's brother, but her son. She had gone away for those six months to have the baby. Stacy reveals to Dillon that the day after she told Preston she was pregnant, he committed suicide.

Dillon and Jen grow closer. She tells him about her stepfather raping her, swearing him to secrecy. During one of her basketball games, she breaks down and runs off the court, fleeing to a local bridge where she plans to jump to her death. Dillon follows, preventing her from doing it, and vowing to help her. Later, he contacts a reporter named Wayne Winsett. With Wayne's help, he hides a hidden camera in Jen's bedroom, catching T.B. on tape raping her. Armed with video evidence, Dillon blackmails T.B. into leaving Jen, Dawn, and their mother. T.B. leaves the family and is later arrested in Florida.



By helping Jen, Dillon feels in some way as if he has also been able to help Preston. He regains some semblance of confidence and capability. Now firmly on the path to redemption, he goes to his neighbor and formally apologizes for killing her cat when he was younger.