The Westing Game

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The Westing Game

Author	Ellen Raskin
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Children's Mystery novel
Publisher	E. P. Dutton
Publication date	1978
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-525-47137-5 ISBN 0-14-240120-X ISBN 0-14-038664-5

The Westing Game is a novel by Ellen Raskin that was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1979. It has been adapted into a movie, released under both the names The Westing Game and Get a Clue The sixteen heirs of magnate Sam Westing are called upon at the reading of his will to unravel the secret behind his untimely demise.

[edit] Brief synopsis

Sixteen individuals, of all ages, races, and socioeconomic classes, most of whom live or work in the Sunset Towers apartment building, are summoned to the reading of the will of wealthy industrialist Samuel Westing. The will is in the form of a puzzle, dividing up the sixteen heirs into eight pairs, giving each pair a unique set of clues, and challenging the heirs to solve the mystery of which of the sixteen of them killed Westing; whoever solves the mystery will inherit Westing's fortune. Even though Sam Westing is dead it won't stop him from playing the game! Friendships between the sixteen heirs are made, broken, and mended as each pair attempts to pursue the solution in their own way. As the participants' wild accusations fly, only one heir keeps a cool head and solves the puzzle.

[edit] Major themes and characters

The characters come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and confront the difficulties of cross-boundary interaction. For example;

Class:
- Sam Westing is upper class, the founder of Westingtown, Wisconsin, and Westing Paper Products Corporation
- Grace Wexler is from the idle upper-middle class
- Judge Ford is a judge on the Appellate Division of the Wisconsin Supreme Court
- Doctor Deere is an intern working in plastic surgery
- Crow works with the poor, running a soup kitchen, and is the Sunset Towers cleaning woman
- James Hoo and George and Catherine Theodorakis are entrepreneurs, with very different levels of success
- Otis Amber is a working class sixty-two-year-old delivery boy
- Sandy McSouthers is a working class doorman for the tennents of Sunset Towers
- Sydelle Pulaski has a pink collar job as a secretary
- Flora Baumbach is a dressmaker.
Race:
- Judge Ford is African-American
- Mr. Hoo is Chinese American
- Sun Lin Hoo is an immigrant from China, and speaks little English
- Jake Wexler is Jewish
- The Theodorakis family is Greek
- Sydelle Pulaski is Polish-American
Other:
- Chris Theodorakis has a disability and is wheelchair-bound. He is also an avid birdwatcher.
- Turtle Wexler is a thirteen year-old child, Doug Hoo is a track star, and Chris and Theo Theodorakis are teenagers, and Angela Wexler is a young woman engaged to be married. Angela, Turtle and Chris are all paired with adults in the game.
- Turtle Wexler seems to suffer from mild child neglect. Angela seems to suffer from pent-up frustration with everybody

As the game progresses, the characters interact and frequently become friends with one another despite the superficial differences imposed by race, class, background, and disability. In so doing, several heirs overcome significant personal isolation, another pervasive theme of the book.

The status of some of the characters as immigrants plays an important role, contributing to the pervasive theme of patriotism established by Sam Westing, who styles himself in his will as the "Uncle Sam" of his heirs, and emphasizes his rise from the son of poor immigrants to a manufacturing mogul.

The themes of manipulation and reconciliation also pervade the book. Long-buried conflicts are slowly revealed, and poignantly resolved. Many of the characters start out trapped within social roles to which they are ill-suited, but re-invent themselves as a result of their relationship with the other characters. Every character shows hidden depths beneath the surface, and the story turns as much on each character's confronting their own true selves as it does on discovering their fellow heirs secrets.