42 pages • 1 hour read
Elizabeth BowenA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The novel opens with an open-air concert in London’s Regent Park in 1942, in the midst of WWII. The narrator first describes the attendees’ collective experience, then an interaction between Louie Lewis and an Englishman, later named as Harrison, who is antagonistic toward her. During the music, he thinks about a woman who had previously asked him to stay away from her; he nonetheless plans to go to her flat after the concert.
Louie thinks about feeling lonely and disoriented as her husband, Tom, is abroad with the Army, and her parents were killed in the Battle of Britain. She recalls spending that afternoon in a garden with a potential lover, a man in the Air Force. She lied about living with an elderly aunt when he asked her to go back to her flat, and he became angry at the sexual rejection.
Harrison leaves, and Louie follows him out, asking if he’s going home. He tells her he has a date, and that she should go home herself.
By Elizabeth Bowen
British Literature
View Collection
Irish Literature
View Collection
Loyalty & Betrayal
View Collection
Memorial Day Reads
View Collection
Military Reads
View Collection
Trust & Doubt
View Collection
Truth & Lies
View Collection
Valentine's Day Reads: The Theme of Love
View Collection
War
View Collection
World War II
View Collection