Tuck Everlasting

Plot summary

Ten-year-old Winnie Foster is tired of her family and is thinking of running away from her home in rural Treegap. One day, while in a wooded area her family owns, she sees a boy about the age of 17 drinking from a spring. He tells her that his name is Jesse Tuck and tells her not to drink the water. Soon after, his brother, Miles, and mother, Mae, take her away with them and explain what is happening and why they did what they did. All the while, they are being pursued by a man in a yellow suit who had approached the Fosters asking questions about their land the day before.

The Tucks explain to Winnie that the spring is magical and grants eternal life to anyone who drinks its water. They discovered its effects by accident after heading to the Treegap area to try and build a new life for themselves. In the process, Miles had to deal with his wife leaving him and taking their children with her. They have been living in seclusion outside of Treegap for years, reuniting every ten years and drinking from the spring. Winnie grows particularly fond of Jesse and his father, Angus Tuck, who teaches her about the life cycle that they are no longer a part of and why she must keep their secret.

Meanwhile, the man in the yellow suit has been pursuing the Tucks. Once he discovers Winnifred has been taken by them and overhears their whole conversation, he steals their horse and rides it back to the Foster homestead. After he informs her family of Winnie's whereabouts, they dispatch him and the local constable to return her. However, he breaks away and rides ahead of the constable for he has a selfish motive for finding Winnie.

When the man in the yellow suit arrives at the Tucks' farm he informs them that he has been searching for them for years. Miles' wife and children had come to live with his family when he was a boy and he heard rumors of their secret. He intensified his search within the previous six months. He then informs the angry family that he told the Fosters where Winnie was and that he has received a bounty in exchange for her safe return: the wooded area, and with it the spring.

The man in the yellow suit then further angers the Tucks when he tells them that he plans to gather the water from the spring and sell it to the public. When they angrily refuse his offer to be partners in the venture because they desire privacy over the money, he then declares he does not need their permission to sell the water and begins to take Winnie away. He tells the Tucks that if they will not be his examples, then she will. He says that a child would be a better example, and there is nothing they can do to stop him. Mae, in a last-ditch effort to put an end to the confrontation, grabs her husband's shotgun by the barrel and threatens the man in the yellow suit with it. The man in the yellow suit tries to escape, while Miles tries to stop his mother from attacking the man. Just as the constable rides up to the farm, Mae whips the gun around so hard that its stock strikes the man in the yellow suit in the back of the head, with enough force to fracture his skull on impact. Mae is arrested while the man in the yellow suit is carried inside the farm house, and when the blow later proves fatal she is condemned to the gallows and scheduled for execution the next morning.

Angus, Miles, and Jesse realize that their secret will be revealed once Mae is hanged, so they take Winnie with them and go to the jail and spring her from her cell. Then Winnie takes her place so the Tucks can safely get away. Although they are reunited, there is no more reason for them to be in Treegap, as Mae is now a fugitive from justice. Before departing, Jesse gives Winnie a bottle of the special water so she might drink it when she turns 17 and follow them and marry him. She gives it consideration but decides not to and pours it onto a toad, because she thinks that if she changes her mind then she can go to the spring to get more.

Many years later, Mae and Angus return to Treegap and find that it has changed a great deal – the wooded area is gone and so is their spring; the town has become a typical suburban metropolis. While there, they happen to visit a cemetery where they discover what happened to Winnie: she went on to marry, and had died two years before in 1948. Though Angus Tuck is saddened by this, he also praises Winnie for choosing not to drink the water. They come across a toad near her grave but they are unaware that it is the same one that she had poured water on years before.

Characters

Awards and recognition

Tuck Everlasting has received awards including the Janusz Korczak Medal and the 1976 Christopher Award as best book for young people. It was named an ALA Notable Book and included on the Horn Book Magazine Fanfare List. In 2005 it was covered by Anita Silvey in The 100 Best Books for Children. Based on a 2007 online poll, the National Education Association named it one of its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children." It was ranked number 16 among the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all time in a 2012 survey published by School Library Journal. The Broadway musical received a Tony Award nomination for Gregg Barnes in the category of Best Costume Design of A Musical for the 2015-2016 season.

Adaptations

The novel has twice been adapted to film, and a musical. The first was released in 1981 and distributed by One Pass Media. The second, by Disney in 2002, was directed by Jay Russell and starred Alexis Bledel as Winnie, Jonathan Jackson as Jesse, William Hurt as Angus, Sissy Spacek as Mae, and Ben Kingsley as the man in the yellow suit. It received mixed but generally favorable reviews and currently (November 2016) holds a 61% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. The New York Post praised it as 'handsomely crafted and well-acted'. It grossed a little over $19 million at the domestic box office and did not receive a wide release in foreign territories.

The novel has been adapted into a stage musical with music by Chris Miller, lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and book by Claudia Shear and Tim Federle. It was originally scheduled for a pre-Broadway run at Boston's Colonial Theatre, in June 2013, but plans were abandoned due to a lack of theatre availability in New York. It was produced at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, in January and February 2015, with direction and choreography by Casey Nicholaw. The musical began previews on Broadway, on March 31, 2016, at the Broadhurst Theatre, with its opening on April 26, 2016. Carolee Carmello and Andrew Keenan-Bolger played the mother and her son, with Michael Park (Angus), Terrence Mann (Man in the Yellow Suit), Fred Applegate (Constable Joe), Robert Lenzi (Miles Tuck), Michael Wartella (Hugo), and Valerie Wright (Betsy Foster). Sarah Charles Lewis played Winnie. The production closed on May 29, 2016.