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44 pages 1 hour read

Big Summer

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Part 3, Chapters 14-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3, Chapter 14 Summary

Darshi is still suspicious of Nick, whom she suspects of harboring resentment for the way his mother’s murder had been treated by the police and media. The coincidence of Nick checking in with his former home on the same night Drue dies is too much for Darshi. Mr. Cavanaugh has gone missing, while Drue’s mother has been hospitalized for a breakdown.

Meanwhile Nick casts suspicion on Darshi, who arrived from Boston quickly after finding out about Drue’s death and readily admits to disliking Drue.

Part 3, Chapter 15 Summary

Daphne meets with Rabbi Howard Medloff to give him insight into Drue for his eulogy. She tries to give the rabbi an image of Drue that is sparkly and complimentary. She wonders if Drue had felt pain as she died.

Part 3, Chapter 16 Summary

At the hospital where Drue’s mother is being treated, Daphne walks in on Stuart and Corina holding one another. Corina admits that she has been with Stuart all along. Stuart reveals that Drue was desperate for her trust fund money and needed to get married to receive the money early. Stuart and Drue had gotten married secretly six months before so that Drue could get the money, then Drue planned an elaborate ad-funded wedding for the social clout and financial advantages. They had planned on staging a wedding in which Stuart leaves Drue at the altar for Corina, giving all three of them a reason to be on the news and receive major advertising deals. Drue had also been seeing someone on the side secretly. The entire wedding and relationship between Stuart and Drue had been faked for fame and money.

Drue’s mother Lily enters the room and faints.

Part 3, Chapter 17 Summary

Daphne, Darshi, and Nick comfort Lily. They tell her about Emma Vincent, the caterer who had been arrested for Drue’s murder. Lily reveals that Emma Vincent is Mr. Cavanaugh’s daughter.

Part 3, Chapter 18 Summary

Daphne, Darshi, and Nick track down Emma’s family. They meet her mother, who is stunned to see Nick. She reveals that Robert Cavanaugh is Nick’s father.

Mrs. Vincent tells them how Robert had seduced her at a young age. Her pregnancy was accidental, and it wasn’t until she met Nick’s mother Christina in the local grocery store that she realized Robert wouldn’t leave his wife for her. Mrs. Vincent and Christina became friends, and Nick spent a lot of time with his half-sister Emma as a child. Robert may have slept around, but he did help his children. He would drop in every once in a while, and he has now hired an attorney to represent Emma.

Emma had never met Drue. She had scoured the Internet to keep track of Drue, desperate for a deeper connection to her absent father. Mrs. Vincent explains Emma’s gun as a necessary and legal safety precaution. Daphne spots photos of Emma with Robert, smiling and happy in ways she had never seen with Robert and Drue.

Part 3, Chapter 19 Summary

Days after Drue’s death, Emma is released after police determine that Drue died of poisoning. Daphne attends a memorial for Drue at the Lathrop school. Nick surprisingly attends, and when Daphne gives her speech, Lily begins screaming. The memorial comes to a hurried end, and on the way out Daphne runs into the man she had met outside Drue’s room on the deck. Before she can get his attention, she is intercepted by Detective McMichaels. He tells her that Daphne died from cyanide, a poisoned drink that killed her swiftly and unpleasantly. Since Emma has been cleared, he’s looking for more suspects. Daphne was named in Drue’s will, as were all the biological children of Robert Cavanaugh. Given the revelations of Nick’s paternity and Drue’s death a mere six months after establishing her new will, Detective McMichaels puts the heat on Daphne.

Part 3, Chapter 20 Summary

Daphne updates Darshi and Nick. They decide to meet up later to discuss, and on a walk with Nick, he and Daphne argue about social media. Daphne’s career is online, but Nick worries how technology impacts the formation of relationships. As a child, he had searched online for information about his mother and had seen numerous cruel comments about his mother being a “slut” who deserved what she got. Daphne acknowledges the pain social media can cause but advocates her social media as bringing together a community that unmarginalizes voices.

She brings Nick to her parents’ apartment, where they discuss who could have killed Drue. Darshi joins them. Daphne’s mother hypothesizes that Abigay, the Cavanaugh housekeeper, could have been an embittered victim of Drue’s cruelty. Daphne calls Abigay and they agree to meet at a café.

Abigay tells them about meeting one of Drue’s boyfriends, a dark-skinned chef. The man seems to fit the description of the mystery man from the deck.

Part 3, Chapter 21 Summary

Daphne, Nick, and Darshi scour Drue’s social media followers to find the mystery man. Daphne recognizes him from a picture: Aditya Acharya. The man is older and paunchy, hardly the kind of man anyone would picture Drue falling in love with. They find his address in New Haven.

Part 3, Chapter 22 Summary

On the drive to New Haven, they analyze Aditya’s profile. He is a well-educated data scientist from New Jersey who seems to love dogs. They find his address and Aditya welcomes them inside. He tells Daphne that he recognizes her from the videos and pictures Drue had shown him; he reveals that Drue had been proud of Daphne.

Aditya tells them about meeting Drue when she tutored high school students in Boston. She had liked that Aditya wasn’t impressed by her money or status. Aditya had always known that Drue struggled between her desire for him and her family’s expectation that she marry well. She broke up with him for Stuart, and Aditya crashed the wedding party to check in on Drue. He speculates that whoever killed Drue could have been a person Drue had used and hurt without knowing it, like the girl who had taken her SATs for her and been expelled. 

Part 3, Chapter 23 Summary

On the drive back to New York, Darshi recommends that they stop their search for Drue’s killer. There were too many gaping holes, and Drue had reaped her consequences for treating people poorly. Daphne gets out of the car ahead of her parents’ apartment so she can walk alone and think.

Daphne is gripped by a sudden realization. She uncovers an old picture of Drue’s graduating class at the Croft School. In the group, she sees a woman then known as Kamon Charoenthammawat. Over the years, Kamon morphed herself, losing weight and getting cosmetic surgery until she became Leela Thakoon. Daphne edits the photo to encircle Kamon and sends a message to Nick and Detective McMichaels with a proposal that Kamon could be Drue’s killer.

Daphne goes to her apartment, where Leela is waiting for her, gun drawn. Leela had figured out that Daphne was on her trail when Daphne posted from Connecticut, where Aditya lives. Leela plans on killing Daphne and making the death looks like a suicide. Leela admits that she had paid a man to poison Drue. She tells Daphne that her resentments toward Drue are more than just from getting expelled; Drue had represented everything Leela’s immigrant family had wanted for Leela, but with Drue in the world Leela knew she could never achieve her dreams. Drue’s family’s lawyers had gotten Leela expelled from Croft and all her college acceptances rescinded. Leela had spent time in a psych ward, far away from her family. She had meticulously planned her revenge for years, changing her looks and developing a fashion brand, tracking down Daphne to hire as a plus-size model.

Daphne attacks Leela with a knife. Their tussle is interrupted by Nick, who had been worried when Daphne wasn’t answering her phone. Leela is knocked out on the ground, and Nick comforts Daphne while they wait for the police.

Daphne gives her statement to the police and Detective McMichaels. Nick stays with her overnight and they fantasize about where they could be together, New York or Cape Cod. After they have sex, Daphne stays awake, reflecting on Drue and Leela. She returns to a message from a young girl asking her how to be confident. Daphne tells the girl that it’s important to show people the real her, not her Instagram self, and that everyone is struggling.

Finally, Daphne realizes that her size had helped win the fight with Leela. She thanks her thighs and discovers self-love. Her lasting memory of Drue is from the day when Daphne’s father brought Drue along on their food tour: “This was the happiest day of my life,” Drue had said.

Part 3, Chapters 14-23 Analysis

Part 3 of Big Summer is full of revelations and plot developments.

When Daphne discovers the truth about Stuart and Drue’s relationship, she discovers just how fake people are willing to be to achieve success. Stuart and Drue had an agreement that would give them fame, notoriety, and money. They use one another for their own gain. It is ironic that this surprises Daphne. Drue had often used Daphne for errands and later, for social media clout. Similarly, Daphne also used Drue for access to wealth and confidence. In this novel, many relationships are built on using others. Another example is Daphne’s distrust in her newfound friendship with Nick. She is constantly questioning whether Nick truly wants to get to know her, or if he is using her for proximity to the Cavanaugh family. That Daphne naturally questions whether people like her for her true self shows how easily people manipulate one another. It also emphasizes how easily people can get accustomed to being used; for Daphne, it would not be surprising if Nick was indeed using her because it’s what Daphne has come to understand as normal. Weiner encourages her reader to look for people who lift them up and respect them, rather than use and abuse them.

The Cavanaugh family is rife with lies and family secrets. On the surface, they are the ideal WASP family. They come from old money, have an established socialite identity, and have founded schools and charity organizations. They use their money to perpetuate their image of perfection. But this is only on the surface. In reality, the Cavanaugh family is characterized by instability and infidelity. Robert’s affairs are an unspoken but well-known secret; the children he has had outside of wedlock are lesser known. Even Drue knows that there are other children, though she doesn’t know who they are. This binary of public persona versus private reality emphasizes Weiner’s messages about inauthenticity.

Though many people, Daphne included, are envious of the Cavanaughs, the Cavanaughs are unhappy and under constant pressure to keep up false appearances. They are hardly the model citizens that Manhattan society wants them to be. This inauthenticity leads to Drue’s murder. Drue learns from her parents how to put down others to make herself look better and hurts Leela so deeply that Leela murders her. Had Drue been raised to take responsibility for herself and to appreciate others with humility, she could have avoided being killed.

Weiner shows how it is common to think that the grass is greener on the other side. Daphne believes that Drue’s life is full of happiness and respect. But envying others dehumanizes the human experience. Daphne buys into Drue’s fabricated image and never gets to know Drue’s vulnerabilities and kinder side. Though she may have been idolized, rich, and almost famous, Drue dies with her reputation of being a mean girl, which will live beyond her.

Perceptions and misperceptions play an important role in this novel. Another misperception is that of Aditya. When Daphne first finds Aditya on social media, she judges him by his pictures and the content of his profiles. Aditya doesn’t fit the physical description that Drue would typically go for. He’s dark-skinned, older, paunchy, and nerdy. Because he appears so different than Drue, Daphne assumes that he might be her killer. Her assumptions stem from her misperceptions of Aditya based solely on his social media page. When Aditya turns out to be a kind and genuinely good person, Weiner points out how wrong people can be when they judge others based only on what is revealed on the Internet. For as much as there is shared online, people always keep more offline. Aditya is not only emblematic of this point; he serves as Drue’s post-mortem voice. Through his memories of her, Drue is brought back to life as a kind but flawed person, a loving but self-conscious woman. Aditya humanizes Drue and offers Daphne the opportunity to know more about the version of Drue she would have liked to meet.

Revenge and justice play a key role in these chapters. It is difficult for some people to feel sorry for Drue due to the cruelty she had inflicted. Weiner poses the question: Did Drue really deserve to be murdered because she was mean? Though Drue effectively and systematically ruined Leela’s life and the hopes her immigrant family had for her, Leela’s obsession with revenge is psychotic. Her level of cruelty trumps Drue’s. On one hand, Drue is a classic mean girl; she uses other girls to do the work she would rather not do herself, such as taking her SATs or breaking up with boys. But on the other hand, Drue is more complex. She has a kinder side. People like Daphne and Leela project their own self-esteem issues onto Drue. Leela did not have to risk her academic future by taking Drue’s SATs; Leela chose to break the rules and took the fall because Drue’s family is powerful and influential.

The novel concludes with Daphne’s happy ending. In surviving Leela’s attack and saving her own life, Daphne learns to be grateful for her body. Had Daphne been lithe like Leela and Drue, she may have died. Daphne finally embraces her physicality. She pushes away her inner critic, the voice that tells her that men who are handsome and kind like Nick aren’t interested in girls like her. Nick proves to be an upstanding person who is attracted to Daphne. Daphne accepts his attention, honoring her capacity to give and receive love. She learns that there are more important problems besides weight and looks. In a life where one could be murdered, or lose a parent, or face a lonely life, what’s the issue with having a body that doesn’t fit into society’s narrow and arbitrary ideal? Weiner emphasizes the ways in which social media can skew our priorities. Social media encourages people to care about image above all else, thereby distracting people from addressing genuine conflicts.

Through Daphne’s journey from low self-esteem to confident woman, Weiner suggests that character counts more than socially normalized images of beauty and happiness.

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