53 pages • 1-hour read
Hot Milk
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, sexual content, emotional abuse, animal cruelty and death, mental illness, and ableism.
Chapter 1 Summary: “2015. Almeria. Southern Spain. August.”
Sofia Papastergiadis broke her laptop, on which she has a screensaver of the Milky Way. Her incomplete doctoral thesis on memory is on the laptop. Her life is also broken, and she debates sending the laptop to be fixed. Sofia cares for her sick mother, Rose, who is never happy with the water Sofia brings her. The other day, Sofia was stung by a jellyfish and went to the injury hut on the beach.
The man in the hut tells Sofia that jellyfish are called medusas in Spanish, and they fly a flag with a picture of Medusa when the jellyfish are active. She writes her name, age, and country of origin on a form but hesitates to write her occupation. She is 25 and from the UK, with a degree in anthropology. Sofia works in a café in London to be close to Rose. The man says something in Greek, but Sofia does not speak Greek. Her father is Greek, but he left Rose when Sofia was five years old.
Sofia and Rose have come to Almeria to see Dr. Gomez about Rose’s limb paralysis. They are staying next to a diving school, run by Pablo, which has a dog that tries to kill itself all day. Ingmar, a masseur, complains about the dog to Sofia. Sofia feels like a failure because she gave up her PhD studies to take care of Rose. She wants a bigger life.
She realizes her bathing suit top fell while she was swimming, meaning her chest was bare throughout her interaction with the man in the hut. She puts “waitress” as her occupation. Sofia needs to wash Rose’s yellow dress for their appointment with Dr. Gomez, during which Sofia will need to hold a tray.
The chapter ends with a description of a Greek girl walking on the beach alone, dragging her feet in the sand.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Dr. Gomez”
Sofia has been trying to decipher her mother’s illnesses her entire life, but each time she finds an answer, her mother develops a new issue. Sofia and Rose take a taxi to Dr. Gomez’s clinic, and Rose argues with the driver over the temperature in the car.
It takes 14 minutes to walk into the clinic from the taxi, and Sofia walks with a limp to mimic her mother. Dr. Gomez, with two gold front teeth, greets them. He asks about Rose’s personal and medical history, and Sofia notices Gomez mimicking Rose’s movements. Sofia is distracted by a taxidermy monkey on Gomez’s shelf. Rose complains about Sofia, calling her “lazy,” but Gomez ignores her and suggests that Sofia go to the beach for two hours. Rose protests, but Gomez insists on discussing Rose’s medications privately.
Sofia goes to a bar by the beach for a drink and loosens her dress to tan. Her coworker texts her to let her know that the pen Sofia uses at work burst in her bed. Sofia recalls getting a loan with Rose to travel to Spain, when the bank worker tried to figure out Rose’s spending habits.
Sofia returns to Gomez’s clinic, where Rose tells her that Gomez stopped three of her medications and prescribed iron and vitamin B12. Gomez introduces Rose and Sofia to Julieta, his daughter and physiotherapist. Gomez’s cat, Jodo, visits, and Julieta gives Rose eyedrops when she claims she is allergic to cats. Gomez recommends visiting a statue of the Virgin Mary, but Rose is an atheist. The clinic’s fee includes a car, but Rose cannot drive, because of her legs. Sofia has the clinic’s phone number, and they offer to come pick Rose up if needed.
The Greek girl does not lock her door or clean her windows, which is risky because something bad could happen.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Ladies and Gentlemen”
Sofia decides to free Pablo’s dog. She stops at a café for a cortado, watching the waiter make the drink. She recalls her boss making a comment about how far people have come from using raw milk.
In the bathroom, Sofia sees men’s shoes outside her stall, and she runs to tell the waiter that there is a man in the women’s room. The waiter checks, but they find a German woman in the bathroom instead. She introduces herself as Ingrid Bauer and tells Sofia about the trip she is on with her boyfriend. Sofia is jealous. She hears a man honking a horn outside. Sofia leaves and sees it is a woman honking the horn, and she returns to drink her coffee.
Ingrid approaches Sofia, asking if Sofia can drive. Sofia cannot, nor can she ride a horse, but Ingrid brings her to the beach. They run on the beach before lying down. Ingrid’s phone rings, and they kiss. While Ingrid is on the phone, Sofia leaves, ignoring Ingrid calling out to her.
The Greek girl drinks tea and resents that her shirt is too hot. The other narrator says she looks like a lonely cowboy watching the stars.
Chapter 4 Summary: “The Knocking”
Sofia hears someone knocking, but she is retying Rose’s shoelaces. Rose says she thinks better in tied shoes, so Sofia undoes the knots to make new knots. Sofia thinks about Ingrid’s foot on her inner thigh on the beach. She imagines that her father is knocking to relieve her, while Rose thinks about walking in the Yorkshire Wolds.
The knocking grows louder, and Sofia answers the door to find Ingrid. Ingrid talked with Matthew, who agreed to retrieve the clinic’s car for Sofia. Ingrid examines Sofia’s jellyfish sting and tells her to answer faster the next time she knocks.
The other narrator thinks about the Greek girl’s breasts and suggests that she not sleep naked if she does not want mosquitos to bite her.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Hot Milk opens at the beginning of a specific point in Sofia and Rose’s journey, but the opening suggests that this journey has been going on for years. Sofia and Rose are in Almeria to go to the Gomez Clinic, but Sofia implies there has been a long-lasting trend of Rose developing, curing, and replacing illnesses. The exact timeline is left intentionally vague, since Sofia reflects on how she slips in and out of time, a pattern that establishes her complacency in her toxic relationship with Rose and The Struggle for Independence she will face throughout the novel to separate herself from Rose.
This skewed relationship with time is best shown in the opening chapter, when Sofia describes the laptop breaking, the medusa stings, the injury hut, her past with Rose, and her bathing suit falling down in the wrong chronological order, which explains how Sofia is perceiving time and events outside the linear order in which they occur. In addition, the novel quickly establishes tertiary events and characters that influence Sofia despite not being major components of the story, such as Pablo, Pablo’s dog, and Ingmar, all of whom form the backdrop of Sofia’s journey, rather than critical elements of it. Taken together, the opening section of Hot Milk presents a classic postmodernist mix of interior monologue and bending time, creating a sense of unease and lack of clarity that reflects Sofia’s own conflicted inner state.
Many chapters in the novel end with a short paragraph written by an unidentified narrator regarding a Greek girl. Implicitly, the Greek girl is Sofia, and the likely candidate for the speaker is Ingrid. Ingrid’s thoughts being presented alongside Sofia’s in this way indicates a connection between the two characters, suggesting that they are both on a similar journey of self-discovery.
The theme of The Complexities of Sexual Desire and Identity opens with Ingrid and Sofia’s kiss, which is preceded by Sofia mistaking Ingrid’s shoes for those of a man. Later, Sofia recalls how Ingrid “placed her foot on the inside of [her] right thigh” (42) just as she answered Matthew’s call, revealing Ingrid’s mixed interest in both maintaining her relationship with her boyfriend and exploring her new interest in Sofia.
Ingrid and Sofia have a clear and instant connection, which the kiss turns into a sexually-charged beginning to their relationship. However, Sofia again mistakes Ingrid for a man by thinking her father is knocking at the door, only to discover Ingrid has come to treat her medusa stings. This confusion of gender and sex sets up Sofia’s growth in terms of sexual identity and desire, as she wants to be with Ingrid, but she cannot yet identify what roles she and others should play.
A critical component of the opening chapters is the rapid development of the characters involved in Rose’s medical care, introducing the theme of The Blurred Line Between Physical and Psychological Suffering. Not only is Sofia present for Rose’s treatment, but Gomez and Julieta quickly become invested in investigating Rose’s history and relationship with Sofia, which suggests that the ailments the two women face are not just physical, but psychological and emotional. The abandonment of Sofia’s father hints at why the two women are so intertwined with one another: It is implied that neither woman has fully recovered from the impact of the family fracture, leaving them overly reliant on one another instead of finding a healthier balance. Likewise, Gomez’s insistence on getting Rose off some of her medication suggests that he suspects Rose is not actually as ill as she thinks, and that her real malady is of a different nature.
Matthew and Ingrid, too, suddenly become involved in getting the clinic car for Rose and Sofia, and Juan becomes invested in learning more about Sofia as well. The uncanny speed with which these characters jump into Rose and Sofia’s life reflects Sofia and Rose’s loneliness, as they have suddenly thrust themselves into a new environment full of new people and experiences. When Ingrid comes to visit Sofia and knocks on the door, Sofia tells her that they “never lock the door” (43), indicating their willingness to let new people into their lives in a more physical sense. In order to show this change of pace, Levy introduces characters and scenes that have a sudden and deep familiarity, likewise showing that Rose and Sofia are desperate to break apart and explore themselves and others.
Unlock all 53 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs