Out of Darkness

Out of Darkness is a young adult historical novel written by Ashley Hope Pérez and published in 2015 by Holiday House of New York. Pérez holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Indiana University, where her research focused on Latin American literature. A professor of World Literatures at Ohio State University, she is also the author of What Can’t Wait (2011), The Knife and The Butterfly (2012), and Rural Voices: 15 Authors Challenge Assumptions about Small-Town America (2020). Out of Darkness is the recipient of several awards, including the Michael L. Printz Honor for Excellence in Young Adult Literature (2016), the Thomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award (2016), the Americas Book Award from the Consortium of Latin American Studies (2016), and has been listed as a School Library Journal Best Book of 2015, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2015, a Top Ten TAYSHAS Selection for 2016, and a Spirit of Texas novel.

Out of Darkness is divided into three parts: Part 1 describes the evening of an explosion and its aftermath, followed by a brief depiction of a shoe James Washington “Wash” Fuller, one of the protagonists, sees when he enters the decimated school. Part 2 is titled “Before” and comprises chapters for each of the months from September 1936 to March 1937. Part 3 is titled “After” and contains one chapter, beginning on the date of the explosion, March 18th, 1937, and ending with the Epilogue. Each chapter is divided into two separate sections, each written from a third-person omniscient perspective, with the heading indicating which character the narrative is following for the duration of the section. The characters Naomi, Beto, Wash, Cari, and Henry each have reoccurring sections throughout the novel, in addition to sections with Naomi and Wash together. There are also sections for “The Gang” which depict the experiences of a group of rough delinquents who attend school with Naomi and provide further context.

Out of Darkness explores themes of family dynamics, young love, loss and loyalty, racism and religion, and sexual assault and abuse—thoroughly grounding itself in the specific context of East Texas in the 1930s.

This guide is based on the 2022 paperback edition of the novel.

Content Warning: Out of Darkness contains sensitive material, such as mentions and scenes of miscarriage, death in childbirth, emotional abuse and manipulation, copious expressions of ableism and racism including racial epithets, violence (specifically, racial and sexual violence including lynchings, murder, sexual assault, and sexual abuse of a child), and a gas explosion resulting in the gruesome deaths and maiming of adults and children.

Plot Summary

In September of 1937, 17-year-old Naomi Vargas and her twin half-siblings, Beto and Cari, move from their grandparents’ home in San Antonio, Texas, to New London, to live with Henry Smith, the twins’ father, and Naomi’s stepfather. Henry, an oil field worker who is convinced that religion has made him a new person, has not seen his seven-year-old son and daughter since he abandoned them when their mother Estella died days after their birth.

Naomi is apprehensive of the move; Henry sexually abused her as a child and forced her mother to submit to a sexual relationship with him, resulting in the multiple pregnancies he was aware would likely kill her. As the twins excel at a recently built New London school, Naomi attempts to balance attending school with the enormous amount of work she is expected to do around the house.

Henry works long hours while Naomi cares for the twins, cooks, cleans, does laundry, and runs errands. Naomi attracts attention from the boys at school and becomes the target of the privileged and vicious Miranda Gibbler, who is merciless in spreading rumors and trying to ostracize her. A spark of happiness enters Naomi and the twins’ lives when they meet Wash Fuller, a kind, gentle, and just young Black man attending high school in Egypt Town. Wash spends endless afternoons fishing and exploring the woods with the twins, who come to cherish and admire him.

Naomi and Wash spend more time together and develop a friendship which blooms into a genuine, mature romance. The former befriends a classmate named Tommie, who is also new to New London and living in the oil field camp, and Muff, her neighbor, who takes Naomi under her wing and helps her with advice and domestic tasks.

As time passes, Henry reveals he has not changed at all, becoming short-tempered with the twins and sexually aggressive toward Naomi, resuming his old habits of disappearing on drinking binges and visiting sex workers. Unaware of the atrocities Naomi suffered as a child, the community encourages a marriage between her and Henry—spearheaded by Pastor Tom, who initially inspired Henry to have Naomi and the twins live with him and believes the children are Henry’s destiny through which he will realize the life God has planned for him. Henry proposes, and Naomi declines. He continues to pressure her, enlisting the help of Naomi’s grandmother, who tells her she cannot come back to live with her grandparents and should thus accept the proposal.

Confiding in Wash about her history, he and Naomi decide to elope and start a new life with the twins. Naomi promises to marry Henry after graduation, trying to buy herself and Wash time. The couple’s plan is derailed when their school explodes one afternoon in March, killing one of the twins, Cari. Wash initiated the plan to install the gas lines that caused the explosion (in a deal with the school’s superintendent) and suspects Henry will not wait any longer to force Naomi to marry him. He makes plans to leave with Naomi, but he is cornered by an angry mob that tries to lynch him and his father, Jim Fuller, before Pastor Tom stops them.

Wash, Naomi, and the remaining twin, Beto, try to escape New London. However, Naomi goes back home to rescue Beto’s cat Edgar, and her mother’s remaining possessions and is spotted by Henry, who pursues her. In the violent, visceral conclusion of the novel, Henry, armed with a revolver and a shotgun, marches Beto, Wash, and Naomi to the woods; he holds Beto at gunpoint and forces him to tie Wash to a tree. Henry beats Wash, and then beats and rapes Naomi, forcing Beto to watch.

Henry tries to make Beto shoot Wash, and in the confusion, Henry’s gun goes off and mortally wounds Naomi. Crawling, Wash reaches Naomi and is shot in the back by Henry. Henry shouts at Beto to shoot Wash, but Beto turns the shotgun on his father, killing him. Wash’s father Jim finds Beto alone in the woods and brings him back to San Antonio, to the safe haven of his grandparents’ home. Beto grows up to write the text which becomes Out of Darkness as a testament to the turbulent months of 1936-1937 and the brief feeling of family he was able to cling to in his relationships with Cari, Naomi, and Wash.