Bad Summer People

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Themes

Power and Micronarratives

Whenever there is no overarching moral code or metanarrative, societies become regulated only by power. What is considered moral by the people of Salcombe is determined by whoever can impose their personal narrative most effectively on the group. Rachel represents the power of gossip and character assassination to regulate Salcombe society, using her power to either keep or reveal secrets as social weapons. In many cases, her secrets are kept, revealed, or falsified to present an appearance of power that does not really exist. For example, Rachel uses the secret about Jen and Jason to punish Lauren and Jen for beating her at tennis; then she uses outright lies about Susan to prevent people from looking more closely at the events of the night that Susan died. Rachel doesn’t judge Jen and Jason as immoral or disloyal. Instead, her motives are about ego, hurt feelings, and self-protection. In other words, her actions are dominated by the micronarratives that she tells herself.

While Rachel’s use of gossip is the most obvious application of social power, other characters apply different kinds of leverage to get their way. For example, Lauren uses her image to maintain her status as the queen bee of Salcombe society. She reinforces her position by using Rachel to undermine her rivals with gossip, but her highest power is in her aura of perfect elegance. Even her children, especially Amelie, serve as part of her image. Lauren has created a micronarrative of superiority that is strong enough to compel other women to fall in line with it. Other characters with less powerful images nevertheless guard their own facades, concealing financial troubles, marital conflicts, and even drug use to preserve an appearance of power.

In sharp contrast to these behaviors, Susan represents the alternative of widely-held grand narratives to regulate societies. Whereas Larry, for example, doesn’t judge Robert for his embezzlement, Susan tries to hold Robert to a higher standard of morality, however unsuccessfully. She warns Robert against inappropriate behavior with a married woman, and she intends to fire and possibly prosecute him for embezzling from the tennis club. Susan therefore chooses actions that are intended to maintain social cohesion rather than to serve her own interests. Her choices are dictated less by practical considerations of individual circumstances than by an overarching perception of right and wrong. In Susan’s moral world, right and wrong should apply to the weak and powerful alike.

With the circumstances of Susan’s death, however, moral relativism triumphs over moral absolutism, for none of the characters experience permanent legal consequences for their actions. Instead, they go their way outwardly unaffected. In fact, Robert, who committed the actual murder, is even rewarded with everything he has ever wanted, and with this ambiguous conclusion, the author refuses to pass judgment on whether her characters deserve their fates, leaving it up to the reader to decide whether to embrace the idea of a universal right and wrong or an everyone-for-themselves version of morality that is dictated only by power.

The Consequences of Moral Relativism

The outcome of the story suggests that morality is not universal, at least for those who are powerful or wealthy enough to rise above it. Many critics reject this premise, however, observing that the characters’ lack of higher morality is destructive to themselves, their peer group, and the larger society in which they live. Nonetheless, within the world that the author creates, the characters pursue their morally ambiguous goals surrounded by a conceptual framework of moral relativism that they use to rationalize their choices and manipulate outcomes in their own favor. Thus, in the aftermath of Susan’s death, they all work double-time to forge an inner narrative that appears to exonerate them, thus avoiding punishment, and in some cases, even reaping rewards for actions that less privileged people would consider to be immoral.

For example, although Jason is indirectly punished for his affair when Sam and Jen arrange to have him arrested, he is eventually exonerated and returns to his normal life. Similarly, Lauren is rewarded for her participation in Susan’s death by receiving more power in her future relationship with Jason. This becomes apparent when she asserts herself enough to make Jason sell the Salcombe house and buy a place in the Hamptons instead. Her life also returns to the status quo. Perhaps most tellingly of all, however, is the fact that Robert is never punished either for his embezzlement or for his murder of Susan. Larry Higgins doesn’t even consider the embezzlement to be a disqualifying factor in the question of whether to hire Robert, and even Micah, who knew that Robert was the last person near Susan before she was discovered in the morning, decides not to disrupt Salcombe society by exposing him.

Of all the summer people on Fire Island, Rachel may have suffered the most for the smallest crime: that of exposing the truth about Jen and Jason’s affair. As a result of her decision to make this information public, she loses her social position entirely and goes instead to California, where she will never achieve the social position that she craves.

The implication of all these outcomes is that moral relativism, however controversial, is often beneficial to the individual. In the aftermath of the murder, the characters return to their ordinary lives and suffer few—if any—repercussions for their involvement. From a certain point of view, however, it may appear that their ordinary lives are punishment enough for their misdeeds, for all of the characters have been cast out of their “Eden” and are sent back to lives that they regard as comfortable but not meaningful. Lauren has money but not love, lacking even the superficial thrill of her affair with Robert, while Robert himself has become one of the people he despises. Likewise, Jen is free to pursue her endless affairs without the titillation of betraying her husband. More than anything else, however, the characters’ punishment lies in the fact that they are all unlikable. In this sense, the moral relativism of postmodernism fails to champion the ideals that are vital to creating meaning in life, for people need grand narratives and moral absolutes in order to provide a framework and a higher goal for which to strive. Lacking this framework, the characters’ story arcs ultimately leave them in a stew of vague dissatisfaction that they cannot dispel.

Betrayal and Disloyalty

The story’s many conflicts stem from various instances of disloyalty and betrayal. For example, Jason and Jen are betraying their spouses, who have a right to expect their loyalty and Lauren also betrays Jason by seducing Robert. Meanwhile, Robert betrays the expectations of his job, and Rachel betrays Lauren by sharing her secret. The sum of all these betrayals combines to shatter the community of Salcombe. Yet within this widespread framework of dishonesty, Jason’s affair with Jen represents the first and most significant betrayal that upends the status quo and the stability of the community. Even so, the affair itself is only a symbol of the greater betrayal in Jason’s envy and hatred of Sam. Jason has always allowed Sam to believe that Jason cares as much about Sam as Sam cares for him, but Jason is perfectly clear in his own mind that he hates Sam. Jen’s appeal for Jason was always that she belonged to Sam, and he revels in taking something that belongs to Sam.

The Parkers and Weinsteins have always rubbed along well enough together while Jason and Jen maintained the appearance of loyalty, but it was Sam’s good nature and naiveté that actually held the group together. Without his compliance in accepting the status quo, none of the others evince enough loyalty to sustain the integrity of the group. Thus, it is Sam’s discovery of his wife’s betrayal that sets in motion the confluence of events that ultimately leads to Susan’s death—an event that stands as the symbolic death of moral judgment.

Jen and Jason’s affair is also the impetus for Rachel’s betrayal of her loyalty to Lauren and Sam. Rachel has carried a torch for Sam all their lives. Learning about Jason and Jen finally gives her an opening to win Sam for herself. Knowing about Jen and Jason emboldens Rachel to make a pass at Sam, and his rejection and her resulting jealousy cause her to tell him that Jen is having an affair. Rachel’s jealousy of Lauren and Jen after they beat her in the tennis tournament prompts her to punish them both by finally exposing Jason and Jen’s affair. In this moment, Rachel is betraying Lauren’s trust by turning on her, trying to punish her for winning. Rachel acts on impulse without thinking about how the revelation will ruin all their lives—especially hers. Rachel’s jealousy is the impulse, but the affair and the betrayal are the vulnerabilities.

Robert’s betrayal of trust by embezzling from the tennis club is unrelated to Jen and Jason’s affair, but it also sets the seal on the disaster, for his embezzlement scheme sets in motion the events that lead to Susan’s accident and his subsequent decision to murder her, thereby eliminating her as a threat. Yet Susan’s view of the world also stands as a philosophical threat to the other characters, for she sets a standard of morality based on over-arching principles rather than on the convenience of the individual. Had she been content to warn Robert to stop embezzling and leave it at that, she would not have been out in the storm. Ultimately, all betrayal and disloyalty demonstrated in the novel finds its origins in the perpetrators’ belief in moral relativism, caring more for their own desires than for upholding higher principles—which sometimes require the sacrifice of immediate gratification. The resultant destruction of the community stands as the inevitable consequence of a disregard for the metanarrative of right and wrong.