Sunburn
56 pages • 1-hour read
Chloe Michelle HowarthSunburn
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Chapters 13-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of antigay bias, child abuse, sexual content, and substance use.
Chapter 13 Summary
Lucy avoids Martin and her mother for the weekend, sleeping at Joan’s before Sunday Mass. Joan laments that Lucy is closer to Susannah than the other girls, and Lucy fears that Joan knows the truth. At Mass, Lucy waves to Martin but walks to Susannah’s with Maria, who asks about the kiss with Martin. Lucy avoids answering. Phil, Susannah’s father, is leaving Susannah’s house. His other children are young, and he rarely visits Crossmore, while Susannah rarely visits him in the city. Phil tells Lucy to take care of Susannah, which confuses Maria. Maria, Susannah, and Lucy chat, and Lucy pretends to be excited about Martin, saying that he will pick her up. Maria leaves, and Susannah kisses Lucy. They have sex in the greenhouse, and Lucy forgets her problems. Susannah asks about studying for Leaving Certs, the final exam of secondary school, but Lucy has not started. Susannah implies that Phil knows about their relationship, and Lucy wonders if her father would be supportive.
Lucy goes home in a good mood and plans to tell her family about Susannah. Her mother calls her in and tells her that Martin is there. Lucy tries to tell her about Susannah, but she realizes that her mother is setting her up. Lucy’s father and brothers leave when she enters the room, and her mother leaves her with Martin. They talk about the kiss and the Debs, and Lucy knows she is supposed to go with Martin. He asks, but she does not answer. He lingers at the door when she walks him out, and Lucy sees her mother by the stairs. Lucy agrees to go to the Debs with Martin. Martin leaves, and her mother spins her around. They stay up gossiping, and Lucy is both sad and relieved. In bed, Lucy worries about how Susannah will react.
Susannah is bitter and angry, which Lucy has never seen before. She says that Lucy should have said no to Martin and that the girls could have gone in a group. Lucy knows that this plan would not work since the girls and their mothers would not understand. Lucy feels like she was born to disappoint Susannah. There is nothing they can do, and they are sad.
Chapter 14 Summary: “May 1992”
Though Leaving Certs are approaching, Lucy’s family only cares about the Debs. When Tadgh took his Certs, the whole house focused on his studies, but Lucy’s mother says that the Certs are not the most important thing for Lucy. Lucy has no plan, but she assumes that she can marry Martin or Susannah and live off their money.
As school ends, Lucy avoids her mother, and exams take a toll on everyone. Lucy is annoyed with Martin’s studying, but Susannah buys her candy and kisses her in the bathroom. Lucy has no career or college plans, which makes her dread the emptiness after school and the Debs. Exams end, and they are no longer children.
Sorcha and her friend, Orlagh, bring the girls to buy Debs dresses. Lucy struggles to keep up with their conversation as they discuss the dresses, and Susannah looks amazing in her dress. Sorcha asks about Martin, which leads to a conversation about him, and Lucy sees a sad look in Susannah’s eyes. Martin calls and asks to see Lucy’s dress, but she suggests a drive. They drive around while Martin talks about his new car, and Lucy wonders if she would find the car interesting if she never knew Susannah. Lucy needs to leave Crossmore, but she needs either Susannah or Martin’s money to do it. Martin kisses Lucy in the driveway, and Lucy thinks she likes it for a moment. She pushes him away and goes inside, wondering if she should tell Susannah about it.
Lucy goes for a walk, lamenting the choice between Martin and Susannah. She touches an electric fence to jolt her. The girls gather at Susannah’s house. Recounting their first kisses, Susannah says that her first kiss was with Lucy when they were six. The girls say that it doesn’t count. Lucy thinks about how they all have different opportunities, even though they are from the same place, and she does not know if Susannah’s inheritance can support her. Eimear says that a boy, Dennis Jennings, was caught in bed with another boy, and Susannah challenges the girls’ disgusted reactions. Susannah and Lucy share a look acknowledging that the girls would reject them for being together. Susannah does not say anything. Martin picks Lucy up, and Lucy worries that she is stuck with Martin.
Chapter 15 Summary: “July 1992”
As Lucy gets ready for the Debs, she remembers Susannah’s garden the previous summer. She reapplies her lipstick, and her mother looks at her with sad and proud eyes. Martin arrives looking like a man. He brings Lucy to the dance and will not leave her side. Susannah is with Jack Healey, a boy who graduated last year. Seeing Susannah comforts Lucy, and she realizes that Susannah can be her date. Lucy dances with Martin and feels like this is the moment that he will later tell people cemented his love for her. Martin is Lucy’s best friend, and she likes being with him. The girls trade alcohol in the bathroom, and Martin kisses Lucy when she returns. Lucy dances with Susannah and tells her that she belongs to Susannah. Lucy realizes how special her love with Susannah is, and she thinks she would put up with everything if their roles were reversed. Lucy thinks that this is the moment she decides to spend the rest of her life with Susannah, and Susannah says she loves Lucy.
Chapter 16 Summary
Susannah writes Lucy a letter and talks about seeing a strand of Lucy’s spit between her teeth in the car. She hates Martin for thinking that he has any right to Lucy and suspects that his thoughts are “filthy.” Everyone discusses their plans. Susannah wants to leave, Martin might stay on the farm or go to college, and Lucy is only concerned with making people happy. Martin gets closer to Lucy, and she worries that she will not be able to end their relationship in August.
Susannah insists that Lucy make her choice soon, offering to take them somewhere where they can be accepted. Lucy fears losing her family and friends and worries that Susannah’s love will not be enough. Susannah lets Lucy delay her decision. Lucy struggles between being with Susannah and her money or Martin and his farm. She continues to delay and enjoy summer.
Chapter 17 Summary: “August 1992”
For Susannah’s birthday, Eimear’s mother makes extra food for her, which Susannah does not realize is charity. Catríona leaves a note telling Susannah that she has left with a boyfriend and will not come back to Croft Hall. Susannah spends three days wandering the house alone, knowing that she cannot call Lucy without Lucy’s mother disconnecting the phone. Maria gathers the girls to visit Susannah, but they do not know how to comfort her. Lucy stays the night, holding Susannah until she falls asleep. Lucy’s mother and grandmother gossip about Catríona, and Lucy says nothing. Phil visits Susannah for half an hour, and she refuses his offer to come to the city. Days pass with the girls drinking and smoking at Susannah’s house, while Susannah and Croft Hall disintegrate. They do not like how Lucy tries to stop their partying, but Lucy does not think that partying is good for Susannah. Lucy asks Susannah if she wants the girls to leave, but Susannah just kisses Lucy. They enter the house, and the girls leave, grumbling about Lucy as they go. Susannah says that Lucy puts them “on edge.” Lucy complains to Martin about the girls, and she is frustrated that Martin is nice to her. She lets Martin hold her while she tries not to think about how she cannot help Susannah.
Susannah writes countless letters for the girls, her parents, and others, but she labels them all for Lucy. Susannah asks if Lucy will still love her when she is fully decayed. Lucy brings Susannah into the bath and washes her. Susannah notes how cold Catríona’s letter was and tells Lucy that they need to leave Crossmore soon. Lucy realizes that she will never choose to leave. She will keep Susannah waiting forever, and she feels evil. They say that they love each other.
Chapter 18 Summary
Lucy reflects on how Susannah has brought her to life, but she does not know if she can bloom like Susannah. Lucy knows that she would lose everyone else if she chose Susannah. Lucy’s mother and grandmother discuss how Niamh is getting married despite her scandal, and Martin brings Lucy to a field to look at the sky. Lucy touches his hair but fears that he might misinterpret it as romantic. Martin says that he is going to college and asks if Lucy is coming with him. Lucy cannot answer, and he asks her to think about it. When he leaves, he gives her a letter, which Lucy feels is an intrusion on her and Susannah. Martin’s letter begs Lucy to go with him, saying that they need to stop pretending they are not made for each other. Lucy wishes that she were another girl, who would be overjoyed, and she resents being pulled between Martin and Susannah.
Phil is bringing Susannah to Paris to celebrate her graduation, and Lucy watches her pack. She gives Susannah Martin’s letter, and Susannah is furious. She tells Lucy to choose to leave with her and forget Martin. Lucy says that she cannot leave her family and friends, and she suggests waiting a few months. Lucy will go to the city with Martin, and then Susannah can come up to be with her. Susannah is tired of sharing Lucy and forces her to choose. Lucy cannot say anything, and she feels their relationship ending. Martin arrives to get Lucy, and Lucy steals a look at Susannah, knowing that Susannah is no longer hers. Lucy cries in the car and tells Martin that it is only because she will miss everyone. Susannah is a blur in the mirror, and Lucy knows that Susannah was the “summer of [her] life” (197). As Martin drives them away, Lucy realizes that she has only Martin left. When Susannah returns from Paris, Lucy will be in the city with Martin, and she fears that Martin will get tired of her.
Chapters 13-18 Analysis
The central conflict of the novel is largely explored in this third section of the text as Lucy moves from being concerned about secrecy into a more direct examination of her identity and desires. She needs to choose between Martin and Susannah, each of whom offer her different paths for her life. Martin represents the sanctioned life path—predictable, legible, and endorsed by her community—while Susannah offers a life that is authentic but socially perilous. Critically, a third option should exist, in which Lucy chooses neither Martin nor Susannah, but her inability to confront her problems prevents her from conceptualizing a life outside of these two relationships. This binary thinking reveals how small-town social structures can limit imagination just as much as opportunity. This section reveals a Lucy who is not only fearful of social and familial repercussions but also quietly self-serving. She often frames Susannah and Martin in terms of what they can provide her, whether it’s stability, excitement, or social cover, and she even wonders if Susannah’s inheritance will be enough to sustain a shared life. Her love for Susannah coexists with a sense of dependence that makes her feel incapable of shaping her future alone. This tendency may be rooted in her perception of her mother, whom she cannot imagine having a career before settling into domestic life, though she did. Lucy’s view of female adulthood is deeply colored by examples in which survival is tied to attachment, making her selfishness inseparable from self-preservation. Contributing to the theme of The Significance of Sexual Awakening, this narrowing of options underscores how Lucy’s desire is never just about who she wants but about how her environment shapes and constrains the very possibilities she can imagine for herself.
Lucy frames this conflict as a choice between happiness and isolation with Susannah, since her family and friends will disown her for her sexuality, or unhappiness and community with Martin, since she will retain her family and friends at the cost of her true identity. However, Howarth shows how this illusion of choice is Lucy’s downfall since she will be isolated no matter which option she chooses. In the literal sense, when Lucy leaves Crossmore with Martin, she notes, “Everybody else has fallen away, it feels they are growing more distant by the minute…The only one left is Martin, and I have no choice by to be dragged up to the city behind him” (197). In reality, both Martin and Susannah intended to take Lucy away from Crossmore, and she loses contact with her friends and most of her family regardless of her choice. The “dragged” imagery underscores Lucy’s passivity, as she does not walk toward her future so much as get pulled into it. In a more abstract sense, Lucy’s isolation in choosing Martin is also tied to her rejection of her own identity. The Lucy that goes with Martin, earns her mother’s approval, and tries to forget Susannah is not the “real” Lucy. Even if Lucy managed to stay in contact with her friends, she would be interacting with them as a different person, thus isolating her true self from the world anyway.
The foundation of Lucy’s internal conflict is rooted in the theme of The Challenge of Identity in Small Communities since Lucy constantly reflects on who she is versus who she should be. When Martin offers to bring Lucy with him to college, she reflects, “If I were another girl, in another life, this offer would be irresistible…How sweet it would all be if I could just make it work with him” (192). Lucy knows that most girls in her position would take Martin’s offer without hesitation, but Lucy’s sexuality is a core part of her identity. She cannot easily accept a life with Martin since that life would require denying herself. At the same time, Lucy struggles with the “sin” of being with Susannah, which she knows is unacceptable in her small town. This tension between what she desires and what she believes she ought to desire creates a moral double-bind, where either choice feels like a betrayal. Lucy thinks that, without her family, “[she] could not cope,” and “[i]f the girls were to go from [her]—and they would go—[she] could not live,” calling them the girls “who raised [her], and whom [she] raised” (188). This interdependent relationship with Lucy’s friends and family is another core part of her identity. She is a girl from Crossmore with a mother, a father, three brothers, a group of friends, and a distinct, rural upbringing. Denying these elements of her identity is as painful to Lucy as denying her sexuality, creating a genuine dilemma as she tries to choose her path. In effect, Lucy’s tragedy is not just that she must choose between love and belonging but that she cannot imagine a version of herself that contains both.
Before the final break with Susannah, Lucy makes tentative plans to come out to her family, only to be outmaneuvered by her mother, who has Martin waiting in the house when Lucy arrives home. This is also the section in which Susannah gives Lucy an ultimatum, insisting that she must choose, and her disappointment is palpable when Lucy says that she will attend the Debs with Martin. These events are intercut with moments that reveal both Lucy’s emotional hesitations and her capacity for decisive action. When Susannah’s mother leaves with a boyfriend and she finds herself alone in an empty house, Lucy ends the reckless partying with the other girls and takes care of a weakened, dispirited Susannah. Here, Lucy briefly assumes control, providing comfort in a way that Susannah cannot for herself. Yet these moments of agency are undercut by her inability to sustain them. Her resolve to be honest with her family dissolves when confronted by her mother’s manipulation, and Susannah’s confidence in her own identity only makes Lucy’s uncertainty sharper. Highlighting the theme of the significance of sexual awakening, these turning points show that Lucy’s struggle is not only about desire but also about whether she can act from a place of self-knowledge, rather than in reaction to the expectations and pressures around her.
Together, these chapters form the emotional breaking point of the novel, where every compromise that Lucy has made—avoiding open conflict, performing heteronormativity for safety, delaying decisions—collapses under the weight of ultimatum. The section closes with Lucy in motion toward a life she does not truly want, her “summer” with Susannah reduced to a past-tense memory. By denying herself the possibility of a third path, Lucy enacts the novel’s most devastating truth: In a world shaped by rigid social boundaries, inaction is not neutrality but a choice with lasting consequences.
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