51 pages • 1 hour read
Taylor Jenkins ReidForever, Interrupted: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 9-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “June”
Ana gives Elsie a ride to Susan’s hotel to discuss Ben’s funeral arrangements. She informs Susan of the situation she encountered with Pavlik, again insisting that Ben wanted to be buried. Susan gets upset; she’s still hurt that Ben didn’t tell her he got married. She remains skeptical of the whole situation because Elsie and Ben were married less than two weeks before Ben died. Elsie realizes that Susan is grieving and directing her anger at her.
Later, Pavlik calls Elsie to say that Susan took over the burial plans. Elsie gives in but demands to speak at the funeral. After she gets off the phone, she realizes that Ben is actually gone.
Ana makes Elsie pancakes and strikes a deal with her: She’ll help call the library about her work schedule and Elsie’s parents if Elsie eats. Elsie dials the library but hangs up as soon as the Reference Desk lady answers.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary: “January”
On Martin Luther King Day, Elsie agrees to reorganize the World Religions section for her boss, Lyle, although the library is closed. Ben calls the Reference Desk and asks to meet up, revealing that he’s just down the street. Shortly before he arrives, Mr. Callahan stops by. Elsie lets him in, and Ben shows up. Together, they help Mr. Callahan find a book for his great-granddaughter. Ben recommends his favorite young adult novels. Afterward, the couple heads out on a date.
Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary: “June
Elsie calls the library again and talks to Lyle. He offers her as much time off as she needs, but Elsie wants to “get back into [her] routine” and promises to return to work after the funeral the following Tuesday (113). Lyle expresses his condolences and mentions God’s plan, but Elsie doesn’t believe in God anymore.
Elsie calls her parents and tells them about Ben’s death. She also reveals that they were recently married. Her parents immediately start scolding her for being impulsive and scoff when she calls herself a widow. Then Elsie’s mother starts pressuring her about finding a better job; her parents have never supported her career. After Elsie gets off the phone, Ana congratulates her for handling these situations. Elsie eats some of her food and retreats to her room, where she dials Ben’s phone and repeatedly listens to his voicemail greeting.
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary: “January”
One Saturday night, Elsie and Ben have dinner at a wine bar. Ben receives multiple calls that he ignores throughout the evening. Finally, he reveals that his ex, Amber, is drunk dialing him. Elsie gets jealous and confronts him for letting Amber contact him, and she becomes even more upset when he reveals that he and Amber were together the night before he met Elsie. Furious, Elsie storms out of the restaurant. She knows she’s overreacting but wants something real with Ben, and she suddenly doubts that he’s serious about her. Ben races outside, and they argue about the situation. Eventually, they make amends, agreeing that they only want to be with each other. After they kiss, Ben changes his voicemail greeting, saying that he’s busy and will continue to be busy.
Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary: “June”
Elsie listens to Ben’s voicemail greeting over and over. Finally, Susan picks up and tells her to stop calling. Elsie yells at her, saying that she just wants to hear Ben’s voice.
Ana helps Elsie prepare for the funeral. She gives her a black hat with a veil for the occasion. Elsie feels like a widow for the first time when she sees herself in the hat. Then she tries on a dress, tripping and bursting into laughter. She feels momentarily better but then chastises herself for laughing when Ben is dead.
On the day of the funeral, Elsie is unsure that she can go. She tells Ana she’s afraid that attending means that Ben is gone forever. Eventually, Ana gets her in the car and drives them to Orange County, California, for the ceremony. None of Elsie’s other friends are there because Elsie didn’t think she could handle talking to them. The service is filled with people she doesn’t know. Susan gets up and gives her eulogy. She tells a story about saying goodbye to Ben when he left for college. When she returned home afterward, she found a message from him written in soap on their guest bathroom mirror. She still hasn’t erased it.
Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary: “January”
Elsie and Ben spend almost every minute together for the next five weeks. On the last day of their deal, they discuss getting a dog. The conversation turns into a joke, but Ben accidentally tells Elsie he loves her. Elsie has been waiting for the end of the five weeks to tell Ben, too. They express their mutual feelings and Ben writes a love message in soap on the mirror. Elsie leaves it there for several days.
Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary: “June”
Elsie says a few words at the cemetery. She expresses how much she loved Ben, assuring his loved ones that he was happy when he died. Afterward, the mourners put dirt on his casket. Susan momentarily grabs and squeezes Elsie’s hand.
Elsie and Ana drive to Susan’s house for the funeral reception. The house is massive and carefully decorated. Inside, Ana encourages Elsie to talk to Susan. They have a brief conversation in which Susan assures her that the only way to get through this is by staying positive. Elsie wanders around afterward, trying to find the guest bathroom to see Ben’s soap message. She decides to leave when she overhears two guests talking about her. She realizes that everyone sees her the way Susan does.
Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary: “February”
Over dinner one night, Ben tells Elsie that he’s stressed about telling his mom about their relationship. He explains how hard everything has been for Susan since his dad died. He doesn’t want his and Elsie’s relationship to make her feel abandoned and left out. Elsie doesn’t totally understand, but she encourages Ben to take things in his own time. Back at home afterward, Ben reads aloud to Elsie until she falls asleep.
Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary: “June”
Elsie tells Ana she wants to leave the reception and says goodbye to Susan. Susan’s parting words make Elsie realize she never expects to see her again. Back at home, Elsie tells Ana that she can sleep at her own place. After she leaves, Elsie feels entirely alone.
Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary: “February”
Ben has breakfast with his mother, intending to tell her about Elsie. However, he calls Elsie afterward and admits that he didn’t end up doing so. Elsie tries to be understanding. Then Ben recites what he wants to do with Elsie that night and for the rest of their lives together. Delighted, Elsie tells him to hurry home.
Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary: “June”
Elsie stays in bed until Ana comes over. They visit the bookstore, where Ana buys Elsie Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Elsie gets upset that Ana is trying to fix her problems and insists that no book could possibly help her. She storms out of the store and walks all the way home, crying. Once she’s back, she checks the mail for the marriage certificate, but it still hasn’t arrived. Instead, she finds the newspaper and is shocked to notice the date. She realizes her period is late.
Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary: “March”
Elsie and Ben have sex. They lie in bed talking afterward. Ben is glad that Elsie has a NuvaRing so he doesn’t “have to worry about anything” (166). Elsie is surprised that he can’t feel it when he’s inside of her. Worried, she goes into the bathroom and checks for the ring and realizes it fell out. She starts to panic but Ben calms her down, insisting that she can count on him no matter what happens. Relieved, Elsie embraces him, and they have sex again.
Part 1, Chapter 21 Summary: “June”
Elsie wonders if she’s pregnant. Suddenly feeling hopeful, she races to the pharmacy, tries to ignore the cereal aisle, and buys several pregnancy tests. Back home, she takes the tests, but they are all negative. Then she gets her period, and she lies on the floor crying. Finally, she calls Ana.
Part 1: Chapters 9-21 Analysis
Elsie’s grief over Ben’s death complicates her ability to relate to others and pursue healthy relationships. After meeting Ben, Elsie rapidly curates her entire life around their relationship, letting her other relationships and interests fall by the wayside. While Reid develops their romance in sweeping, passionate scenes, Elsie’s behavior also indicates that she struggles with her own sense of self, preferring to sink herself into Ben entirely. Therefore, when Ben dies, Elsie struggles to engage with her life once again—she has lost not just her partner but her identity. Indeed, Elsie doesn’t even let her friends attend Ben’s funeral, although many of them “offered to come” (136). She excludes them from the event because she isn’t sure “how to react to them in this context” and isn’t sure “how to be their host at a place where [she feels] like a guest” (136). This line has a double meaning, speaking not only to feeling like an outsider in Susan’s home but in her own life.
Ben’s funeral underscores The Intensity of Brief and Sudden Romance, including the steps the couple missed out on like integrating each other in their existing lives. Elsie feels like a stranger among the other mourners because her and Ben’s relationship was so insular. She doesn’t know who anyone in attendance at the funeral is, which makes her “feel like [she] didn’t know Ben” (135). Her experiences at the funeral ceremony, the cemetery burial, and the funeral reception underscore her alienation. She can’t share her grief with any of Ben’s family members or friends because she never established connections with them while Ben was alive and they were together. Furthermore, she feels incapable of sharing her sorrow with her own friends because few of them knew Ben either. Ana stays by Elsie’s side in the days leading up to the funeral, but Elsie even begins to push her away. Her reaction to Ana’s kindness and sympathy at the bookstore particularly illustrates the isolating nature of Elsie’s grief. She can’t perceive Ana’s generosity because she feels so alone in her own emotions. As a result, Elsie cannot imagine how to pursue connection in the wake of losing Ben, as she hasn’t yet learned how to translate the significance of her loss to others.
The early stages of The Journey from Heartbreak to Healing are isolating and confusing for Elsie. However, Elsie and Susan’s complex dynamic foreshadows relationship changes in Elsie’s future. Susan is the only character who might truly understand what Elsie is going through. This is particularly true because Susan feels as alone in her grief as Elsie does. She pushes Elsie away because she is hurt that her son didn’t want to share his life with her. Not unlike Elsie, Ben’s death augments the loneliness that Susan was already experiencing when he was alive. Therefore, similarities begin to accrue between Elsie’s and Susan’s characters and storylines throughout these chapters. Their experiences aren’t mirror images, but their shared shock and sorrow over losing Ben grants them a ready point of connection. The women are also similar in that their grief feels personal and private. They therefore act out in selfish ways because they each feel that the other one is trying to rob her of her right to grieve. These parallels between the characters foreshadow the eventual connection between them and lay the groundwork for The Process of Finding and Building New Relationships. This is particularly true in the cemetery scene from Chapter 15, where Susan “grabs [Elsie’s] hand, if only for a split second, and squeezes it” (146). This fleeting moment of physical contact suggests that they “are together in this” and that they “could be [something] to each other” (146). The subsequent scenes at Susan’s house challenge this hopeful notion of connection but don’t entirely eradicate it. Indeed, both women are alone in their sorrow and need someone who understands what they have lost and the difficulty of confronting and healing from this loss.
Elsie’s pregnancy scare challenges her to confront what she’s lost and how alone she is. When she realizes that her period is late, she immediately feels hopeful that “Ben could be living inside [her]” and that carrying Ben’s baby would prove that their relationship “is a tangible piece of the world” (170). The possible pregnancy becomes a powerful symbol for Elsie, representing a piece of her late husband that can endure in the world. This conflict illustrates Elsie’s struggle to embrace connection with anyone besides Ben. Therefore, she experiences another loss all over again when she starts bleeding and finds out she isn’t pregnant. The false pregnancy is thus a short-lived symbol—Elsie places all of her hopes in the idea that a piece of the past can come with her, but this is not how healing works. At the end of Part 1, therefore, Elsie must confront what she’s lost and seek out healthy relationships that might help her to heal from it. She has found herself on an emotional threshold, which catalyzes the narrative shift into Part 2.
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By Taylor Jenkins Reid
