payment page
Lucy, the novel’s protagonist, is a bright, anxious young woman with aspirations of being a travel writer. In this coming-of-age novel, Lucy’s journey reveals the destructive consequences of misplaced trust and of trying to control one’s life through superficial means. Lucy’s character also reveals the collapse of integrity that occurs without a strong sense of identity. These themes are paralleled in Lucy’s relationships with Stephen and her mother, CJ, and in her pursuit of becoming a travel writer.
As a teen, Lucy’s chief goal is to become a travel writer, and she chooses to attend Baird College because of its prestigious Writers on the Riviera program. Lucy is resentful toward her mother because of an extramarital tryst Lucy witnessed when she was fourteen. Lucy’s assumptions about CJ’s behavior result in a fractured, painful relationship between the two women. The irony in Lucy rejecting and not trusting her mother—someone who unconditionally loves and supports her—is that once Lucy is at Baird, she places her faith in Stephen, who is fundamentally unworthy of her trust. Throughout the novel, Stephen repeatedly betrays those who love him with infidelity and artifice. The consequences of Stephen’s actions are disastrous to all involved. Consequently, the havoc that often ensues following Stephen’s indiscretions are what Lucy feels her family endured as a result of CJ’s single act of infidelity. While under his influence, Lucy remains oblivious to this parallel.
Under Stephen’s influence at Baird, Lucy’s integrity and sense of self deteriorate to the point where she loses sight of her original purpose for attending the school—the Writers on the Riviera program. By her sophomore year, Lucy is fully enmeshed with Stephen, serving as his mistress while he openly dates Diana. She no longer attends parties with her friends and devotes her time and mental energy to clandestinely rendezvousing with Stephen. Rather than asserting herself, Lucy maintains a sense of control by restricting food and exercising obsessively. Her shrinking body mirrors her dwindling sense of self. Lucy’s complete abandonment of herself is demonstrated when she declines her invitation to the Writers on the Riviera program to be able to attend Stephen’s graduation party back home. Lucy lies to her family and friends about the program, claiming she didn’t get in, thus revealing her subconscious awareness that she’s making the wrong choice.
Though Lucy briefly glimpses a return to her stronger self after her therapist points out Stephen’s narcissism and sociopathy and she avoids contact with him, it is not until the novel’s end, when Stephen ends things with Lucy in New York, that the truths Lucy has been denying become evident. She learns that CJ atoned for her infidelity with her husband and that she is thus worthy of trust. Lucy’s apathy toward Stephen at Bree’s wedding and her decision to go back to school to be a travel writer signals that Lucy is on the road to recovering herself.
