One Italian Summer

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-10

Chapters 11-16

Chapters 17-21

Chapters 22-26

Chapters 27-31

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1 Summary

On the last day of her mother’s shiva, Katy Silver contemplates how her life will look without her mother’s influence. (In Judaism, a shiva period is a weeklong mourning ritual for immediate family members; shiva means “seven” in Hebrew.) An interior designer, Carol Silver preferred to keep their home clean and abided by a set of rules to live by, such as planting herbs but not flowers and always having fresh lemons at home. Katy considers breaking Carol’s last rule to never smoke with a cigarette between her teeth as she remembers her mother’s impact on those around her.

As Katy lists her mother’s endearing qualities and their weekly tradition of getting lunch together on Tuesdays, she centers her and her mother’s lives around the other: “My mother, you see, is the great love of my life. She is the great love of my life, and I have lost her” (3). Not only did Carol play an active role in their community, but she also maintained and organized her household as a wife and mother. She took on all the domestic responsibilities and prioritized Katy above all else. Through her grief, Katy realizes that she must take care of her father, who relied on Carol to cook every meal, and she must attend to the countless guests who have stopped by their family home to offer their condolences.

Katy and her husband, Eric, met during college and moved to New York together; he worked as a journalist while she worked as a copy writer. However, they moved back to California to be close to her parents. Engulfed by grief, Katy desires to uproot her life, beginning with divorcing her husband. Although to Eric this feels like a rash decision, Katy has been contemplating divorce since her mother got sick months prior. Rather than immediately separating, Katy tells Eric to give her space during the already-planned mother-daughter trip to Positano, Italy, that she will be taking solo. Carol loved Positano and went there as a child and again at 30. She always wanted to return and take Katy with her.

Chapter 2 Summary

As she prepares for her trip to Positano, Katy reflects on her relationship with Eric and questions if she made the right decision to get married in her early twenties. Having returned back to their house, Eric asks Katy if she is sure she does not want him to drive her to the airport but reassures her that this trip will be beneficial for her, despite her rejecting his help. She fixates on the pizza box sitting between them on the kitchen counter when Eric asks to discuss the future of their relationship. She thinks back to their time in college—Eric would supply them sandwiches as they studied—and how their relationship unfolded from dating to marriage. She reminds herself of the trust that they built between them through college, moving to New York, and returning to California before they decided to get married.

Katy focuses on the distance that she has placed between them and is unsure if she will return to California to continue their marriage. She remembers Carol’s hesitancy about Katy marrying so young because “there’s so much to do and so much time to be married” (18). She questions if her mother was right and if she should have made the decision to explore the world more before marriage. Katy tells Eric that she wants to take a break while on her trip to Positano, and he agrees to her wishes despite being unhappy with it.

However, Katy remembers that Eric is part of her family. She reminisces on the good times that they have had together. Eric gets angry with Katy for isolating herself from him during the grieving process, and he reminds her that he lost Carol, too. Katy feels as though she has to take care of Eric and that their marriage confines them to each other. However, he also reminds her that he is not her responsibility but rather her husband. Katy gets into an Uber and heads to the airport. On the drive, Katy reminds herself she will be traveling to Positano alone and without Carol, which furthers her feelings of grief.

Chapter 3 Summary

Upon her arrival in Italy, Katy reflects on the prolonged travel experience to get to Positano, claiming that it “is not an easy place to get to” (23). After a 13-hour flight, Katy must get on a train from Rome to Naples; then, a driver will take her from Naples to Positano. During the train ride, she thinks back to her and Eric’s time living in New York and how they would take a train to see his family in Boston. She focuses on the nature all around her on the ride to Naples.

Once the chauffer picks her up in Naples, Katy has a moment of recognition that she is in Italy and is not having to be her mother’s caretaker. Rather, she can focus on the present, which she was not afforded during her mother’s prolonged illness.

Katy enjoys the ride down the Amalfi Coast and appreciates the Italian countryside’s beauty. She also thinks about how her mother planned for them to take this trip during June because tourist season does not begin until July, so they could explore Positano with fewer crowds around. Katy had sent Carol restaurant options and places to visit based on recommendations from friends, but her mother planned their itinerary. Katy has brought it along with her.

Once she arrives to Hotel Poseidon, Katy checks in at the front desk and starts to get settled in her hotel room. She has a terrace that overlooks the city, so she can see other hotels, rooftops, and the sea. She wants to share this moment with her mother, but she reminds herself that she is here alone.

Chapter 4 Summary

Going to eat dinner in the hotel, Katy watches as couples sit in chairs and drink Aperol spritz outside. When she orders her dinner, Katy thinks about how she and Eric usually order meals or eat at her parents’ house. She feels guilty about not cooking for Eric like her mother cooked for her father. She also realizes she will be eating alone for the first time. Watching the other hotel guests around her, Katy thinks about her own place in the world. She claims to be “a stranger” in her own life, and she is concerned that she will not be able to center herself without Carol.

For dinner, Katy eats tomatoes and ricotta ravioli. During the last few months of Carol’s life, Katy ate very little—only enough to keep going and take care of her mom. However, the meal in Italy is “nourishing,” and she feels as though there is a “life force in this meal” (34). As she watches her waiter, Tony, take a picture of a nearby couple, Katy thinks of Eric. She imagines him walking over to the couple to take their picture and engage in a conversation with them. Katy dislikes his ability to make conversation with anyone, despite his joy in making small talk with new people.

After dinner, Katy calls Eric, but he does not answer. She leaves a voicemail to let him know that she made it to Italy and wonders if she should give him more details. However, she decides against this and goes to sleep.

Chapters 1-4 Analysis

In the first four chapters of One Italian Summer, Katy and Carol’s relationship maintains a large role in Katy’s perception of the world. By opening with Carol’s death, the novel begins in medias res with a life-altering shift for Katy. She refers to herself as “the great love” of her mother’s life (3). She says, “I was her one, just like she was mine” (7). Serle uses romantic language to establish a sense of intensity in the relationship between the mother-daughter duo and introduce the theme of Mother-Daughter Relationships. The loss of Carol has directly impacted Katy’s sense of identity. She does not understand who she is without her mother; Serle uses this to begin Katy’s character arc with the novel’s primary, conflict: Katy’s sense of identity after the death of her mother. This is established with an internal soliloquy about her sense of belonging:

I no longer belong to my mother. I do not belong to my father, who no longer belongs to himself—shuffling around the house that was theirs, piecing together the schedule—on what days does Susanna come and clean? I do not belong to my husband, whom I’ve told I may no longer want to be my husband at all. I do not know where home is anymore. I do not know how to find my center without her, because that’s what she was. I was Carol Silver’s daughter. Now I am simply a stranger (34).

Serle uses anaphora, with the phrases “I do not belong” and “I do not know,” to emphasize the internal conflict to the reader regarding Katy’s insecure sense of identity.

Carol’s death also creates a large absence in Chuck’s life. Once her mother passes away, Katy realizes just how much Carol did for her husband. Serle hence draws attention to gender norms and traditional gender roles within marriage. However, Katy does not view Chuck’s dependency on Carol in a negative light. Carol was Chuck’s “quality control,” helping him maintain order in his daily life at home and in his business. Instead of seeing this as a limiting factor for Carol, Katy believes this to be love and accepts this view of her parents’ marriage.

Serle presents the reader with Katy’s view of her parents’ marriage in order to contrast it with her view of her own marriage. Katy feels trapped in her marriage with Eric and does not believe that they have truly experienced life together: “The problem, of course, is that we hadn’t really been through everything together, because we hadn’t really been through anything before. Not until now” (16). She still feels as though they have not grown from when they first met in college. Because of this, Katy questions whether their marriage is strong enough to get through her grief. When Eric gets angry with Katy for not recognizing his own grieving process, she feels as though his grief is “indulgent.” She understands his sadness is “real, grounded in his own connection” (21) to Carol, but she has emotionally distanced herself from his feelings. Through this sense of distance and a stale romance, Serle establishes the secondary conflict in the novel: whether Eric and Katy’s marriage will end or continue.

Katy’s solo trip to Positano serves as an opportunity to understand herself separate from her parents and husband. She desires to gain a better sense of self and Serle hence establishes the theme of The Discovery of Identity Through Traveling. Serle uses the long day of travel as an opportunity for exposition since Katy reflects on her past decisions while the journey reminds her of different parts of her life, such as riding the train from New York to Boston with Eric. By claiming that Positano “is not an easy place to get to” (23), Serle foreshadows the impending internal journey on which Katy will embark during her trip. Just as Katy takes a physical journey to Positano, she will take a self-discovery journey to understand her own identity.

During her first night in Positano, Katy takes the time to enjoy her dinner. Katy mentions that she has never eaten a meal “without some level of conversation” (31). By eating alone for the first time, her dinner symbolizes her first steps toward the discovery of her identity. She has the opportunity to sit with herself and reflect on her desires. Katy also thinks about her mother as a “young and carefree” woman who looked “over this same view” 30 years prior (32). Serle parallels Katy’s experience in Positano with that of Carol’s when she was the same age as Katy is now. Just as Carol spent time alone enjoying her solitude, Katy begins to do the same.