The+Notebook+-+Summary

The story begins with an elderly man in a nursing home telling of how every day, he does the same thing. He says that he knows that science is against him, and that the doctors keep telling him that he’s trying in vain, but that he still believes in miracles, and this is why he reads the notebook to her every day.

The story flashes back to October of 1946 and introduces Noah Callhoun, 31, in his home in New Bern, North Carolina. It tells how Noah has restored this plantation house from 1772, and that a reporter from the Raleigh newspaper had come to do a story on it a couple weeks ago. Noah falls asleep with his dog Clem by his side, thinking about how there is something missing from his life.

Meanwhile, Allie is fighting with herself as to whether or not she should go somewhere. She says that she already talked to Lon about it, but that he doesn’t know the real reason she wants to go. She decides to go, drives to New Bern, checks into the hotel, goes out for lunch and shopping, comes back to her hotel, and calls Lon. She tells him that there’s nothing to worry about, and he believes her. She then tells us about how she met Lon when she was working as a nurse for the war-torn soldiers being sent home. She met him at a Christmas party, and he had been everything she needed: someone with a confident future and a sense of humor who could make her happy. He had proposed to her, and she had accepted because of this. She begins to feel guilty about coming, but realizes that she couldn’t have lived with wondering what would have happened if she had came. She gets her things and drives out to the plantation house, holding the newspaper article that brought her here.

Noah gets up and kayaks every morning at five. He works on the land and the house all day. He thinks about his best friend Fin and his first love Allie. He says that her parents didn’t approve, and that they had to find ways to be together during that summer when they were teenagers. He tells about the time that he took her to see the plantation house that he wanted to restore, and she told him that she wanted a white house with blue shutters and a porch that wraps around the whole house so they can drink tea and watch the sun go down. He promises that he will give her all those things. He wrote her letters for a year after she left, but they all went unanswered for some reason that he still didn’t understand. He tells about everything he’s done since that summer and says that although he’s dated women since then, none of them have ever measured up to Allie.

She gets out of her car and walks up to his porch. He sees her, and can’t do anything but stare. They start to take a walk, and talk about things that have happened since they last saw each other. Allie finally tells him what she came to tell him: that she’s engaged. It crushes Noah, but he still asks her if they can be friends, at least for the next couple days that she’ll be in New Bern. She says that she’d like that, and they have dinner at the house. They have tea, and watch the sun go down on the porch, just like Allie had wanted years ago. Noah asks her why she never answered any of his letters, and she told him that she’d never gotten any of them. They decide that it was probably Allie’s mother who hid all the letters to keep them apart. Noah asked if it would have changed anything if she would’ve gotten the letters, and she says that she doesn’t know.

Noah shows Allie the painting he has hanging on his living room wall. She had painted it for him when they were together, and said that it was a painting of her dreams. She’s surprised that he’s kept it, and he told her how much it means to him. She tells him how her professors at college suggested that she try her luck as an artist, but that her parents said it wasn’t reasonable, and so she stopped painting ever since. She asks him to recite poetry for her again, and they sit like this on the porch until it gets dark. She tells him that she should go back to her hotel, and he asks her to come tomorrow, that he needs to show her something. She knows she shouldn’t with the way she’s feeling about him, but she agrees anyway.

Meanwhile, Lon has been trying to call Allie’s hotel for a couple hours and he’s starting to get concerned. He knows that something is up, and it occurs to him that he heard once about how Allie’s first love had been one summer in New Bern. He realizes that this is where she went, and that he hadn’t heard from her after dinner. He gets worried that she’s with him, and he decides not to lose her.

The next day, she drives back out to the house. He tells her that he wanted to take her up the creek, but it looks like there’s a storm coming and they might get wet. She says that she doesn’t care, and he takes her out in the canoe. He tells her to close her eyes, and when she opens them again, they’re in the middle of a lake with hundreds of swans and geese around them. She tells him that she loves it and that it’s so beautiful, and it begins to rain. Allie looks up at him, and this is when she realizes that she loves him and that she’s never stopped.

They go into the house and Noah gives her some of his clothes so she can change out of her wet ones. They watch the storm and talk about how things used to be, until they finally gave in to their love for each other again. When Lon didn’t hear from Allie again all that day, he decided he needed to make sure everything was okay, and leaves for New Bern.

The next morning, Noah made Allie breakfast. They went for a walk together, and then came back in for lunch. Someone knocked at the door, and when Noah went to answer it, he found Allie’s mother. She came because she knew that Allie would be there, and that Lon was on his way to New Bern as they spoke. Allie asked her mother what she thought she should do, and she told her to follow her heart, and gave her the letters that she had hidden from Noah.

This starts a whole conversation between the two of them about what they should do. Allie tells him that she loves Lon too, and she doesn’t know what she should do. She tells him that she has to go, and he begs her to stay. She tells him she can’t and they both start to cry as she drives away.

She drives into town to find Lon, but still doesn’t know what to do. She reads one of Noah’s letters, and goes into see Lon. This is when she finally realizes what she needs to do.

The story flashes back to the man in the nursing home reading to the woman. He says that this where the notebook ends, and she asks him which one she ended up with. He tells her that she’ll know by the end of the day, and she says that she’s really sorry, and asks who he is.

He tells how they’ve been living in the extended care facility for three years, ever since they first found out about her condition. He says that their four children come to visit whenever they can, and that this is one of the things he looks forward to. He tells how she was a famous painter, and how her paintings are now in museums all over the world. Until she started to forget things, like how to get home from town, which is when they went to the doctor. He told them that she was in the first stages of Alzheimer’s, and that it was degenerative, so that one day she wouldn’t remember anything anymore.

In the present again, they spend the day together. She asks him questions, but he is evasive and won’t answer them because he doesn’t want to overwhelm her. By dinner time, she tells him that she’s figure out the story, and that she went with Noah. Then she remembers everything, and this is what Noah has worked all day for. They have about five minutes together, until she forgets again and asks him who he is. He tries to make her come back to him again for the next couple days, but she doesn’t remember and it really hurts him. He ends up having a stroke, and going to the hospital for about two weeks before he’s able to come back to the home.

He had missed Allie, and he tries to sneak down the hall to her room to see her. The nurse on the night shift sees him, and tells him that she can’t let him go to her tonight. She says that she’s going downstairs to get coffee and that she won’t be back up to check on him for a while. He checks her coffee cup and realizes that it’s full. He continues down the hall to her room.

He climbs into bed with her, and she knows who he is without him even having told her. This miracle is all he needed, and they kiss before laying back together where they will both pass on before morning comes.