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1-Page Summary of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Overall Summary

Prologue

Rosemary writes about her childhood. She was a very talkative child, and even though she doesn’t know what she’s saying in the home movies, it’s not important because there are so many words. Her parents were happy with her talking, but sometimes her father got annoyed by how much she talked and told her to skip the beginning of stories and start in the middle instead.

Part 1, Chapter 1

The middle of the story takes place in 1996. It has been 10 years since Rosemary last saw her brother, and 17 since Fern disappeared. She notes that she’s now 22, still a student at UC Davis (her fifth year) and hasn’t fulfilled enough requirements to graduate yet because she is so distracted by other things. Her parents are upset about this, especially since they’re still paying for her education. They try to get through to her during every interaction with them but it doesn’t work very well.

One day, a girl named Rosemary is riding her bike to school. She’s feeling wild and free because she loves the feeling of being on her bike in the morning. At lunchtime that day, Rosemary sees two people having an argument at their table in the cafeteria. The girl yells at her boyfriend for wanting some space from their relationship. A bystander tells the girl to relax and says “Don’t side with assholes.” The boy calls his girlfriend a psycho bitch and asks for his apartment key back but she refuses to give it up so he leaves saying that they’re over as a couple.

The police arrive on campus, and they tell Rosemary to put down her glass of milk and plate of half-eaten grilled cheese. However, the worker explains that they have the wrong person. The officer ignores this statement. Meanwhile, Harlow raises a chair and throws it across the room. Immediately after, Rosemary lets her plate drop to the floor and smash. She holds up her glass of milk; however, she decides not to throw it on the ground like she was supposed to do according to instructions from an officer who advised against doing so because there were other people around in case something happened with broken glass or spilled milk getting into their eyes or mouths as well as ruining their clothes if someone got splashed by a thrown liquid substance.

Part 1, Chapter 2

Rosemary and Harlow are arrested and placed in the back of a police car together. The officer who arrested them is named Arnie Haddick. They’re taken to the county jail, where Rosemary climbs the bars to check if they go all the way to the ceiling.

After a few hours, Rosemary and Harlow are processed. Harlow is charged with destruction of property and creating a public nuisance; Rosemary faces the same charges in addition to assaulting an officer. Her boyfriend picks her up right away. She calls her parents, hoping that her mother will answer instead of her father, but she gets him anyway. He admits that he always assumed Lowell would be the one to call from jail as opposed to his sister because their brother has been in trouble before. At first, Rosemary speaks breezily and irreverently about being arrested by Officer Haddick; however, she then bursts into tears when talking about having to go home for Thanksgiving since it’s “a heavy price”.

Part 1, Chapter 3

Rosemary is not surprised that her family doesn’t discuss her arrest at Thanksgiving because they have a history of pretending to be honest and close-knit. For example, although her parents pretend to be open about sexuality, they never explained anything related to puberty or sex. Rosemary’s parents still live in Bloomington, Indiana where she grew up. Apart from Thanksgiving dinner, she hardly sees her father who is busy with a project sponsored by the National Institute of Health (NIH). He barely eats or sleeps when he’s working this hard and doesn’t openly drink while he works so hard but Rosemary knows that he still drinks in secret.