59 pages • 1-hour read
Shrines of Gaiety
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Chapters 22-34Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary: “The Spoils of Egypt”
Ramsay walks the London streets. He approaches some workmen, feeling a sense of camaraderie, but before he can greet them, one of them tells him: “Why don’t you fuck off, you fucking posh fucker” (177).
Ramsay goes to the Sphinx. He’s supposed to oversee the club, but his role is more of a figurehead; in reality, the club’s bartender, Gerrit, manages things. Gerrit takes Ramsay to the Sphinx’s back storeroom and injects him with cocaine. Gerrit is Ramsay’s regular source of drugs, and Ramsay has some attraction to Gerrit: “Ramsay felt both uncomfortable and excited at [Gerrit’s] proximity. He never felt certain what Gerrit’s intentions toward him were” (183). While high in the Sphinx’s storeroom, Ramsay discovers a silver shoe (this is the shoe, we later learn, that matches the one found on Minnie in Chapter 13).
Chapter 23 Summary: “Pinoli’s”
Edith, still not feeling well, meets her secret lover—later revealed as Maddox—at a restaurant, Pinoli’s. The encounter is uncomfortable. Edith thinks that “[e]ven if she broke it off, she feared he would still pursue her. He couldn’t afford to let her go, she knew too much” (188). After their meeting, Edith goes to see Mrs. Darling, Florence and Freda’s landlady, on Henrietta Street (for an abortion, we later learn).
Chapter 24 Summary: “A Kidnap, a Raid and a Small Fire”
Kitty, Betty, Shirley, Ramsay, and Nellie convene at the Amethyst. Various disturbances have occurred at Nellie’s clubs that night. On Kitty’s way to the Amethyst, a man tried to abduct her. Shirley and Betty report a fire at the Pixie—arson. Ramsay reports that there was a raid at the Sphinx. Nellie puts the pieces together, realizing that these are “[o]pening salvoes from the enemy — arson, abduction and a raid. All attempted, all failed. Maddox’s signature was all over the raid and the fire. Not the kidnap, though” (205). Nellie attributes Kitty’s attempted kidnapping to Azzopardi.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Morning Tea”
Frobisher goes to work, relieved to escape his glum home life. He met Lottie when she was attempting to jump off Waterloo Bridge; he saved her life, but “in doing so he had lost himself” (207).
Chapter 26 Summary: “Simpson’s in the Strand”
Niven and Azzopardi have lunch. Azzopardi believes that Niven is going to help Azzopardi overthrow Nellie. In fact, Niven is keeping Azzopardi close to learn his plans. He is unsure whether to “save his mother or […] betray her […], but in his heart he knew that blood would win.” (210).
Chapter 27 Summary: “The Audition”
The novel goes back in time to Freda’s dance instructor, Mrs. Sherbourne, securing Freda an audition for a show, Betty in Mayfair. It is revealed why Mrs. Sherbourne pretended that she hadn’t seen Freda in months and didn’t tell Gwendolen about the audition: When Freda arrives at the audition, she’s sexually assaulted by the man she’s “auditioning” for, Owen Varley. When Freda fights him off, she’s afraid that she’ll die and become “a martyr to fame and fortune” (223). However, Freda does successfully escape. She realizes that the “audition” was a ruse set up by Mrs. Sherbourne for Owen Varley. Freda meets Florence at a café after the fake audition. While Freda is in the café bathroom, she leaves her bag with Florence. The bag is stolen. Florence and Freda get in a fight.
Chapter 28 Summary: “The Invisible Man”
Frobisher is on the job, surveilling the Amethyst. Tonight is the night that Gwendolen, along with Constable Cobb, will go to the club to see what she can find out about the illicit activities there. Frobisher watches Gwendolen and Constable Cobb enter the club and then goes home, where he finds Lottie with an empty syringe in her arm. It’s revealed that Lottie has a morphine addiction. Frobisher doesn’t realize that he’s being followed by one of Nellie’s henchmen, Landor; Nellie is keeping an eye on Frobisher.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Carpe Noctem”
Ramsay has a conversation with Vivian Quinn, the gossip columnist, and learns that she is writing a novel called Folderol (236). Vivian invites Ramsay to a “Spieler,” an illegal card game, the following week (237). After leaving Vivian, Ramsay goes to the Amethyst, where a gang brawl has erupted. A man is shot: Aldo, a member of the Frazzini gang. Nellie arrives to calm the situation. Gwendolen, on her undercover mission with Constable Cobb, uses her WWI nursing experience to care for Aldo. Niven arrives to the club and is surprised to find Gwendolen there.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Night in the Square Mile of Vice”
The narrative flashes back to the beginning of the night from Gwendolen’s point of view. Constable Cobb picks Gwendolen up from her boarding house and they go to the Amethyst club, where the gang fight erupts. Constable Cobb flees, while Gwendolen stays late to help the injured man, Aldo. The next morning, Niven drives Gwendolen back to her boarding house—however, Gwendolen realizes that she doesn’t have a key and is locked out. Niven drives Gwendolen to a hotel and gets her a room, leaving her there to sleep.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Keeping the Sabbath”
The morning after the shooting at the Amethyst, the Coker children convene at their home in Hanover Terrace. Kitty is in awe of Gwendolen, having seen her tend to the wounded man the previous night: “Kitty’s got a new idol” (261), Betty says. Edith missed the action as she’s sick in bed.
Chapter 32 Summary: “A Gentleman Caller”
Niven goes by the hotel where he got Gwendolen a room the previous night, wondering if she’s still there. He learns that she’s checked out and that she insisted on paying for the room herself. Niven notices Landor, one of Nellie’s hired men, loitering around the hotel and realizes that Gwendolen is being followed, but he’s not sure by whom: “Was Gwendolen Kelling in danger? Niven was surprised at how disturbed he was by this possibility” (269).
Chapter 33 Summary: “Another Gentleman Caller”
The narrative jumps back in time to earlier that morning, now told from Frobisher’s viewpoint. Frobisher, eager to hear Gwendolen’s report of her evening at the Amethyst (and not yet knowing about the shooting), goes to look for her. He stops by Gwendolen’s boarding house, but she isn’t in.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Necromancy”
The narrative jumps back to the present. Upon leaving the hotel, Gwendolen discovers that Niven has paid for the room. Wondering whether “she want[s] to be beholden to Niven” (274), Gwendolen decides that she doesn’t want this obligation hanging over her head, so she asks the hotel clerk to tear up Niven’s check and pays for the room herself.
When Gwendolen gets back to the boarding house, she has a note from Nellie, asking Gwendolen to meet her. Gwendolen and Nellie meet, and Nellie offers Gwendolen a job managing the Crystal Cup. Gwendolen agrees. She moves out of the boarding house and into a room above the Crystal Cup. Gwendolen wonders what will happen if Nellie finds out that Gwendolen is also working for Frobisher: “The Last Supper, she reflected, was followed by the crucifixion, a punishment not beyond Nellie Coker if she found out about Gwendolen’s deception” (281-82). Later, the reader will learn that Nellie already knows about Gwendolen’s link to Frobisher.
Chapters 22-34 Analysis
The Arbitrary Nature of Social Classes is explored in these chapters. First, there’s the incident in which Ramsay approaches some workmen, hoping to engage with them, and is told to “fuck off, you fucking posh fucker” (177). Atkinson employs some humor in this language to highlight Ramsay’s naivety in terms of class relations. While he wants to mingle, the workmen’s sense of class distinction is too strong, raising questions about social class and its arbitrariness. Ramsay is hurt by the incident because he yearns for the kind of camaraderie he sees in the group of workmen, something that echoes the fact that he was too young to fight in WWI.
The symbol of Tutankhamun is further explored in these chapters. Florence tells Freda that Tutankhamun is “haunting the streets, looking for victims, because we dug him up and disturbed his eternal rest” (158). Tutankhamun is an ominous symbol of foreboding—a threat that is felt rather than seen. The symbol gains relevance through the detail given the Sphinx club in these chapters. The unearthing of Egyptian tombs has a Pandora’s Box element to it that reflects many of the characters’ journeys. For example, Freda risks (metaphorically) unearthing the “cursed” tomb when she goes to London.
Several threads placed into the plot chapters earlier are picked up later and hence present examples of “Chekhov’s gun”: the idea that a pistol shown in act one must be fired in act two. A prime example is the silver shoe that Ramsay finds in the Sphinx storeroom. The detail of Minnie wearing only one silver shoe suspends the question over several chapters of where the other shoe is, which resolves in Chapter 22—though raises more questions than it answers. The silver shoe will appear again later in the book. Similarly, the “Spieler” briefly mentioned by Vivian to Ramsay (237) forces the reader to wait until it proves to be significant later: This card game is where Ramsay will become indebted to Azzopardi.
These chapters also introduced fresh mysteries to be unraveled, helping to drive the plot forward and keep the reader turning the pages. Edith’s mysterious lover is one example. The reader witnesses an entire dinner between Edith and her lover in Chapter 23—but doesn’t discover the identity of the man (Maddox) until later.
Increasing action through this cluster of chapters maintains the pace of the plot and keeps the reader engaged. The first part of the book set the stage, painting the characters and their backstories, and presenting some mysteries to be solved (such as why Azzopardi is after Nellie). The book’s earlier chapters also helped set the tone and create a sense of ominous foreboding. Now, the threats that were hinted at start to be realized; Chapters 22-34 are more active than atmospheric. Chapter 24 is the best example of this, with major action: arson, abduction, and a raid, to the extent that the novel begins to exhibit the escapades of the picaresque genre. Nellie realizes that these are “[o]pening salvoes from the enemy” (205) using the language of “opening” that recalls the digging up of Tutankhamun’s tomb. The gang brawl and shooting at the Amethyst is another pivotal plot point that keeps the narrative flowing in more ways than one: Not only does it present major action to the reader, but it serves as the impetus that firmly intertwines the Cokers with Gwendolen and Frobisher. The increasing closeness of the parties, technically pitted against one another, raises the stakes even higher.
Frobisher’s unhappy marriage provides a look at his hero complex, suggesting that he is an antihero both in narrative function and diegesis. He met Lottie while she was attempting to throw herself off Waterloo Bridge: “He had saved her, and in doing so he had lost himself” (207). Frobisher saved Lottie, will save Freda, and he wishes he could save the many lost girls he finds drowned in the Thames. It is significant, therefore, that Lottie, too, almost ended up in the Thames; another shared network running through London that therefore connects her with these girls. While Frobisher’s character is one of the few who is morally upright, his desire to save women speaks to the book’s theme of Expectations and Subversions of Gender Roles. Frobisher worries about Gwendolen, for example, but Gwendolen is perfectly self-sufficient. Similarly, Frobisher can’t save Lottie from her mental illness or her morphine addiction. Frobisher’s heroic desires are unrealized. The relationship between Niven and Gwendolen similarly subverts traditional gender roles when Niven tries to pay for Gwendolen’s room at the hotel. However, Gwendolen pays for the room herself.
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