55 pages 1 hour read

Same Time Next Summer

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Part 1, Chapters 11-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Now & Then”

Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary: “Now”

Jack continues reading while Sam’s mind wanders. She tells herself she’ll stay up late and catch up to where he is in the book, as he’s staying above the garage and she has her own room. Meanwhile, she watches the kids on the beach. Then Gracie emerges and begs Sam to come swimming with her. On the way down to the beach, Gracie asks Sam if she’ll talk to Wyatt. Sam isn’t sure. On the beach, they get into the water and Sam feels suddenly free. She remembers when she took Gracie swimming as a toddler at the YMCA. Being with Gracie was the only thing that helped her get over Wyatt.

When the sisters get out, Sam watches Gracie run toward Wyatt on the sand. Wyatt greets Sam with an old nickname he used to use. Sam tries to act normal but is surprised to see how Wyatt has grown up. She reminds herself he’s 31 now. They talk briefly about Sam’s wedding before Sam excuses herself. Back on the porch, Laurel gives Sam a worried look. She knows how upset Sam was after the breakup. Then, Jack scolds her for getting sunburned. He’s a skin doctor and obsessive about sun exposure.

Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary

Sam wakes up to an email from Eleanor saying she’s on leave for a week “while management reviews [her] employment status” (63). She and Jack decide to spend a few more days at the beach. Before Jack leaves for the gym, he asks to meet up for lunch, worried Sam will forget. Afterwards, Laurel is surprised to learn that Sam has been missing their appointments recently. Then, Wyatt stops by to borrow Travis’s car so he can go to the Owl Barn for festival preparations. Before leaving, Wyatt studies Sam, trying to decide if she’s changed.

Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary: “Then: Wyatt”

Wyatt spent the summer playing guitar, surfing, and hanging out with Sam. One day, he offered to teach Sam to surf. They also chatted about Wyatt’s music. When she asked what he wrote about, he didn’t admit that he wrote about her.

Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary: “Sam”

Sam and Wyatt met up every morning for surfing lessons. Sam got frustrated, unable to balance. Wyatt encouraged her to enjoy it, and she realized she needed to throw herself into it. Then one morning she mastered it.

Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary: “Wyatt

Sam, Wyatt, and their friends decided to camp out on the beach and surf in the morning. Sam and Wyatt broke off from the group to watch the sunset. While sitting together, Sam touched Wyatt’s shirt and imagined touching his stomach and feeling his warm skin.

Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary: “Wyatt”

Wyatt got the idea for a new song and started working on it in the treehouse. Sam climbed up the ladder and joined him. They kissed for a long time, but decided to slow down because they had the whole summer to be together. Wyatt never wanted it to end.

Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary: “Sam”

Sam finally pulled away from Wyatt and returned home to her bed. Unable to sleep, she got up and started drawing a picture of Wyatt playing the guitar in the treehouse. Seeing him play had made her feel close to him.

Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary: “Now”

Before visiting the inn, Jack goes for a run and Sam gets dressed. Through the window, she sees Bill and Wyatt talking in the drive, curious what they’re talking about. She reflects on the “two loves of [her] life,” comparing them to one another (81).

On the way to the inn, Jack tells Sam that Bill invited Wyatt to join their family’s outing at Starfish Beach that evening as a thank-you for helping him fix his car. Wyatt works as a mechanic at a gas station in Los Angeles where he now lives. Surprised, Sam thinks about Wyatt’s former dreams of being a musician.

Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary: “Then: Wyatt”

Wyatt enjoyed the rest of the summer. When he wasn’t working at the local auto shop, he was writing songs and hanging out with Sam. Wherever they went, the neighbors and townspeople exclaimed at what a nice couple they made. Wyatt also liked being around Sam’s family, who seemed perfect compared to his.

Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary: “Sam”

Sam perfected her drawing of Wyatt over the following nights. While drawing, she thought about kissing Wyatt. They recently professed their love for each other, too. The night Sam finished the drawing, she snuck into the treehouse where he was playing guitar. He kissed her when she gave him the drawing. Then they started kissing, and Sam told Wyatt she wanted to have sex. Afterwards, they lay together listening to the ocean.

Part 1, Chapter 21 Summary: “Wyatt”

Wyatt met up with Sam after she finished her shifts at the library, where she worked during the summer. One day, he told her he had a surprise for her and brought her to Starfish Beach. A client at the shop lent Wyatt his boat as a thank-you for fixing his car. They took the boat out on the water and talked about their relationship. Wyatt admitted that he’d loved Sam his whole life and wanted to be together forever.

Part 1, Chapter 22 Summary: “Now”

In the car outside the inn, Sam is annoyed that Bill invited Wyatt. Jack assures her it’s not a big deal. However, Sam can’t stop thinking about her meetings with Dr. Judy and how long it took her to get over Wyatt. She doesn’t want to think about the time she spent with Wyatt at Starfish Beach either. She tries dismissing these thoughts and focusing on the wedding.

Part 1, Chapter 23 Summary

Bill borrows a friend’s boat so the family can go out on the water. Throughout their dinner on the boat, Sam tries to ignore Wyatt. However, her family keeps asking him questions, particularly curious about his romantic relationships. He admits he has an arrangement with another musician.

Part 1, Chapter 24 Summary

The next morning, Sam bikes into town for a coffee while Jack goes to the gym. She passes familiar places and remembers her childhood summers. Then she runs into Wyatt at the diner. Sam is surprised to see Wyatt putting milk in his coffee and realizes she might not know him at all. They chat outside for a while before Sam awkwardly tries biking away with her coffee.

Part 1, Chapter 25 Summary

Sam and Jack go to the beach where Wyatt and Travis are hanging out. Jack remarks on how integrated Wyatt is into their family. Seeing Wyatt shirtless, Sam has a sudden longing to touch him. Jack scolds him for being shirtless because of sunburn. The group briefly chats about the upcoming music festival. Then Wyatt reveals that a tennis player, Skip Warren, got married at the inn. Jack loves Skip and agrees to consider getting married at the Old Sloop.

Part 1, Chapter 26 Summary

In the garage apartment, Sam and Jack argue about getting married at the inn. Sam wants to have sex with him to distract herself from Wyatt, but Jack is talking about inviting his parents to town to check out the wedding venue. Sam gives in, realizing Jack is opening himself to Oak Shore and her family.

Part 1, Chapters 11-26 Analysis

Monaghan’s use of sense memory to connect the Long Island setting to Sam’s childhood underscores the novel’s thematic interest in The Challenge of Navigating Past and Present Relationships. The longer that Sam stays in Oak Shore the more she struggles to compartmentalize her past and focus on the present. Ever since she and Wyatt broke up 14 years prior, Sam has been distancing herself from her childhood memories. She has also tried to change herself in order to disassociate from her relationship with Wyatt and the summers they spent together. However, staying in Oak Shore reawakens Sam’s memories of her romance with Wyatt and of the person she used to be with him. She looks out over the water in Chapter 11 and tells herself that “[she is] the only thing that’s different” (57). This moment conveys Sam’s desire to believe that she is indeed a new person. However, when she is swimming in the ocean, lying alone in her room, or interacting with Wyatt, Sam’s old version of self returns. Monaghan utilizes these mementos of Sam’s past to launch her Journeys of Self-Discovery and Personal Growth by guiding her back to the most authentic version of herself.

The ocean acts as a symbol of cleansing, rebirth, and rejuvenation throughout these chapters. Whenever Sam is back in the water, she suddenly feels as if she is 12 years old again. Being in the water makes her feel “[w]eightless, unencumbered, and free” (58), sensations she hasn’t experienced for over a decade. Throughout the literary canon, water remains an archetypal symbol of rebirth and renewal. The ocean holds this same symbolic power in Sam’s narrative. When she’s near or in the water, she finds herself able to let go of her worries and anxieties. In turn, Sam’s controlled facade loosens, and she’s able to reinhabit a more genuine, unbridled version of herself.

The novel also uses Sam’s interactions with Wyatt to reawaken a dormant version of her character. In Chapter 11, for example, Sam feels suddenly awkward being around Wyatt on the beach as his presence revives her “inner teenager” (60). Because she’s convinced herself that she’s moved on and that she’s the one with the orderly, adult life, Sam struggles to make sense of her feelings of youthful discomfort whenever she sees Wyatt. She has the same reaction to him when he joins her family on the boat in Chapter 23, when they run into each other at the diner in Chapter 24, and when she sees him shirtless on the beach in Chapter 25. These encounters charge the narrative atmosphere, building tension in Sam and Wyatt’s romantic arc and highlighting Sam’s intense sensory and emotional responses to her first love. In the diner scene, for example, Sam says that standing so close to Wyatt “makes [her] feel like [she is] stuck in quicksand” (100). This metaphor evokes the image of sinking and thus of being pulled back into an intense emotional experience. In the subsequent scene, Sam says that talking to Wyatt and hearing him use her old nickname “makes [her] feel flustered” (102). In such moments, Sam has a youthful emotional response to being around Wyatt. She stumbles over her words or acts in clumsy ways. These physical and physiological responses return Sam to a former version of self while revealing her sustained feelings for Wyatt, underscoring The Enduring Impact of First Love.

Sam’s repeated encounters with Wyatt also compel her to reflect on her past and challenge her to reconcile who she once was with who she thinks she is in the present. The continued movement between the narrative past and present reveals that Sam has indeed quashed vital, adventurous, and energetic parts of herself. She hasn’t simply grown up and found a stable job and fiancé. Rather, she has actively worked to silence the parts of herself that she discovered and understood in relation to Wyatt. These facets of Sam’s character include her artistic nature, her impulsive tendencies, and her brave, loving, and empathetic spirit. Monaghan highlights these character traits by featuring them heavily in Sam’s past-tense chapters of the narrative, leaving them notably dormant in the present-tense chapters of Sam’s account. She presents present-day Sam as edgy, impatient, and restless—qualities she doesn’t exhibit in the chapters that depict her and Wyatt’s teenage romance. The disparities between these temporal realms and the two competing versions of Sam reveal the ways in which Sam needs to rediscover herself to navigate her increasingly complicated emotions in the present.

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