Midwife Sarah Jenkins helps Lila deliver twins Tom and Savannah during a hurricane while Henry is presumed dead in Europe; Sarah dies from her injuries.

Henry punishes Tom for accidentally killing a bald eagle by making him eat the bird and wear a feather headdress to school.

Henry beats Luke severely at a family picnic after Luke defends Tom and Lila from Henry's cruelty before his Korea deployment.

Otis Miller, a violent criminal, emerges from the Callanwolde woods and begins stalking Lila and the Wingo children at Tolitha's Atlanta house.

Henry buys Caesar the circus tiger and plans to use the animal as a marketing gimmick for his new gas station.

Henry secretly accepts one thousand dollars to tip off a Florida aquarium crew about Snow the white porpoise's location, betraying his family and community.

Otis Miller, freshly escaped from prison, breaks into the Melrose Island home and rapes Lila, Tom, and Savannah at gunpoint.

Luke releases Caesar, who kills Otis; Tom kills one attacker with Father Kraus's marble statue; Savannah shoots the third attacker dead.

Lila refuses to call the police, forces the family to bury the attackers' bodies, and demands permanent silence about the assault.

Days after Lila's enforced silence about the rape, Savannah slits her wrists for the first time.

Lila divorces Henry after nursing Isabel Newbury through cancer, then marries Reese Newbury, Colleton's wealthiest man.

Luke plants explosives on four railroad lines connecting Colleton to the mainland in protest of the town's planned demolition, killing four workers.

Tom and Savannah travel to Marsh Hen Island, find Luke hiding there, and convince him to surrender voluntarily to the FBI.

Luke is shot dead by a federal agent while traveling alone to surrender at Charleston Bridge.

Henry is released from prison, Lila gifts him a shrimp boat, and the Wingo family watches a sunset together on the water.

The Prince of Tides follows the Wingo family of Melrose Island, South Carolina, through decades of wonder, violence, and devastating loss. Tom and Savannah are born during a hurricane while their father Henry fights in World War II, beginning a childhood defined by both natural beauty and domestic abuse. A violent criminal named Otis Miller stalks and ultimately rapes Lila, Tom, and Savannah, and the family kills their attackers before burying the truth under Lila's command of absolute silence. This suppressed trauma drives Savannah into recurring cycles of self-harm and psychosis, which eventually brings Tom to New York to help her psychiatrist Susan Lowenstein understand the family's hidden history. When Luke wages a guerrilla war against the government's demolition of Colleton and is shot dead, the remaining Wingos must find a way to survive without their most powerful protector. The story ends with fragile reconciliations: Tom returns to his wife and daughters, Henry is freed from prison, and the Wingos attempt to rebuild across the wreckage of their shared past.

The Wingo family's central tragedy, from birth to reckoning.

After being shot down over Germany, Henry kills a German woman who recognizes him as an Allied soldier in order to avoid capture.

Henry returns to Germany to thank Father Kraus, learns the priest was executed by the Nazis, and takes the church's Infant of Prague statue.

Lila moves her children to Atlanta during Henry's Korea deployment; Tolitha hides her first marriage from her second husband Papa John.

Luke hurls Papa John's black widow spiders at Otis during one of the criminal's attacks on Tolitha's house, driving him away for good.

Tolitha takes the Wingo children to pick out her own coffin at the undertaker's, then terrifies an acquaintance by sitting up suddenly inside it.

The Colleton League rejects Lila's cookbook recipe and delivers a charity turkey to the Wingos; a humiliated Lila shoots the turkey dead.

The Wingo children secretly place a decomposing turtle inside the Newbury mansion to avenge their mother's repeated social humiliations at the Newburys' hands.

Savannah openly welcomes Benji Washington on his first day integrating Colleton High School; Tom reluctantly fights the larger Oscar Woodhead to defend Benji.

Colleton High defeats North Charleston in a racially charged football game with Benji's help; Oscar Woodhead lifts Benji onto his shoulders in celebration.

Tom meets Sallie at a phone booth outside a fraternity house after both have been rejected by their Greek organizations on the same night.

Savannah publishes her first anti-war poem in the Saturday Review at the same time Luke receives his Vietnam draft notice.

After a Vietnam ambush kills his comrade Blackstock, Luke carries the body to shore and swims three miles back to his ship.

Savannah testifies in divorce court that Henry abused Lila; Tom and Luke refuse to testify; Lila is awarded Melrose Island as alimony.

The federal government announces Colleton will be demolished for a nuclear plant; Luke declares himself a sovereign nation and is arrested for rabble-rousing.

Tom and Savannah bury Luke's body at sea in the Gulf Stream; Savannah reads the poem 'The Prince of Tides' aloud as his eulogy.

This pool traces the secondary events that shape the Wingo family across generations, from Henry's wartime survival in Nazi Germany to the lives the children build as adults. Key childhood episodes reveal how the Wingos cope with poverty, social rejection, and violence through humor, loyalty, and daring acts of collective defiance. The children's passage through high school and college introduces Benji Washington's integration of Colleton High and Tom's chance meeting with Sallie, his future wife. Luke's transformation from a decorated Vietnam SEAL into an environmental guerrilla fighter charts the political and personal forces that ultimately destroy him. Savannah's early publication and Luke's simultaneous draft notice mark the moment the siblings' diverging paths become irreversible. The pool concludes with the burial of Luke at sea, a moment of grief that marks the permanent end of the Wingo children's shared world.

The Wingos' formative battles, milestones, and acts of defiance.

Moved by Father Kraus's sacrifice, Henry converts to Catholicism during the war and brings the whole Wingo family into the Church upon his return.

Savannah secretly brings the stillborn baby Rose-Aster into her bed; Lila later discovers and burns the journal Savannah used to record family conflicts.

Lila permanently stops wearing flowers in her hair after overhearing Isabel Newbury mock the habit, severing a cherished ritual that had enchanted her children.

After Tom beats up Todd Newbury for insulting the family, Lila forces an apology visit to the Newbury mansion, where Reese secretly slaps Tom.

Tom and Luke attend Savannah's New York poetry reading; that night Savannah describes terrifying hallucinations of mutilated angels and a tiger that have tormented her for years.

Lila calls Tom to report Savannah's latest suicide attempt and catatonic state, asking Tom to go to New York on her behalf.

Tom meets psychiatrist Susan Lowenstein and discovers Savannah's poetry collection 'The Prince of Tides' in her waiting room, with its unsettling cryptic dedication.

Susan plays Tom a recording of Savannah's feverish muttering after her suicide attempt; Tom recognizes the word 'Callanwolde' as a crucial hidden key.

Tom begins coaching Susan's unhappy teenage son Bernard in Central Park each morning, forming a warm bond that Bernard's dismissive father knows nothing about.

Tom finds letters addressed to 'Renata Halpern' at Savannah's apartment, then discovers the children's book 'The Southern Way' by R. Halpern at a nearby bookstore.

Susan reveals that Renata Halpern was a real poet friend of Savannah's who died by suicide, and whose identity Savannah has adopted as an alter ego.

Tom calls Lila to warn her he will reveal the family secret to Susan; Lila insists nothing happened that day, but Tom resolves to speak.

Tom dangles Herbert Woodruff's prized Stradivarius over a terrace edge until Herbert apologizes to him and Susan; Tom and Susan make love afterward.

Lila arrives at Tom's apartment demanding he retract his story, but breaks down and finally acknowledges that she and her children were raped.

Tom decides to return to Sallie and his daughters; Savannah is released from Bellevue and visits Tom's home as her slow recovery begins.

This pool focuses on the turning points and revelations that drive the novel's emotional core, from the earliest signs of Savannah's fragility to the final unraveling of the family's deepest secret. Small but pivotal moments—Lila burning Savannah's journal, Reese Newbury secretly slapping Tom, Savannah's harrowing hallucination episode in New York—reveal how the family's culture of silence has eroded its members from within. Tom's arrival in New York to help psychiatrist Susan Lowenstein treat Savannah triggers a chain of discoveries, including Savannah's hidden alter ego Renata Halpern and the children's book that encodes the family's darkest trauma. The pool charts Tom's growing love for Susan and his bond with her neglected son Bernard, two relationships that force him to confront who he has become as a man. A climactic confrontation with Lila finally releases the shame she has carried for decades and opens the door to healing. The pool ends with Tom's deliberate choice to return to his family rather than remain with the woman he loves, accepting that life rarely offers clean resolutions.