The Change

60 pages2-hour read

Fiction

Novel

Adult

Published in 2022

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Summaries & Analyses
Plot Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 1-10
Chapters 11-20
Chapters 21-30
Chapter 31-Epilogue
Character List
NEW
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Book Club Questions
Quizzes
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Reading Tools
Story Recap
Timeline
Discussion Questions
Book Activities

Chapter 31-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains depictions of graphic violence, sexual violence and harassment, rape, death, death by suicide, substance use, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and cursing.

Chapter 31 Summary: “The Others”

Regretting how she left matters with Franklin, Nessa goes to his beachfront cottage to ask for his help. She is surprised to find that he is not angry at her for shutting him out of the investigation, and he bears her no resentment for the fact that he was fired from the force. He warmly invites her in, and they restart their romantic relationship. Franklin reveals that he has been unofficially investigating the disappearances of dozens of young women on the island. He has turned a spare room into an office, covering its walls with photos of missing girls. He identifies two of them from descriptions provided by Nessa and Harriett: Lena Collins and Rosalia Cortez. He and Nessa agree to work together.

Meanwhile, Jo’s first self-defense class for young women is a huge success, drawing a massive crowd. Claude offers to manage logistics and help expand the program.

That evening at Franklin’s house, Nessa tries to contact Josh Gibbon with their new findings, but he is unreachable. The next morning, she receives a text from Josh’s phone, asking to meet at her house. Franklin sense a trap and warns her to be careful when she opts to meet Josh alone. She drives to her house but remains in her car. She sees a silhouette inside that resolves into Josh’s face, then realizes that no one was home to let him in.

She flees to Josh’s studio in Brooklyn, where his assistant Chet gives her a package that Josh left for her. Chet mentions that Josh has grown increasingly paranoid in recent weeks, fearing that his phone might be hacked. In a nearby studio building, Nessa spots Josh’s ghost, which leads her to his body. He is hanging by the neck—an apparent suicide, although the presence of his ghost belies this. His ghost looks pointedly at the package in her purse. Inside is an unlabeled microcassette. As she leaves, she receives a threatening text from Josh’s phone.

Later, Nessa, Jo, Harriett, and Franklin gather to listen to the tape. It is Josh’s recording of an interview with a teenage girl who identifies Chief Rocca as the police officer who attempted to abduct her at the beginning of July—three weeks after Spencer Harding’s death. The group realizes that Rocca was already involved in the girls’ disappearances and did not stop his actions after Spencer died, which means that other men must be involved.

Chapter 32 Summary: “Defiled”

Jo’s husband Art is reenergized by his new playwriting work but fears for his family’s safety after Josh Gibbon’s murder. He asks Jo and Lucy to move to the city with him temporarily. Jo resists, unwilling to abandon her gym, and Claude offers to have Leonard provide Jo with a new gym space and an apartment in Brooklyn, allowing her to expand her self-defense program.

Meanwhile, Nessa’s daughters, Breanna and Jordan, arrive home from college, revealing that a man has been watching their dorm. They feel it is safer for the family to be together. Soon after, Harriett’s neighbor, Annette, alerts Nessa that police have arrested Harriett.

Nessa goes to the police station, which is being consumed by a toxic black mold. Chief Rocca informs her that Harriett was arrested based on a tip from her ex-husband, Chase, who told Rocca that she was selling mushrooms out of her yard. When an officer collapses from the mold, Nessa provides first aid and leverages the crisis to demand Harriett’s release. In the holding area, she finds a man’s corpse engulfed in mold. Harriett is in the next cell, unharmed inside a mold-free circle. Harriett explains that the dead man was the intruder from Jo’s house; he confessed to having been hired to scare the women out of Mattauk. He had also planned to kill Lucy. Harriett had offered him a chance to confess his sins, but after hearing them, she chose not to help him survive the mold.

Chapter 33 Summary: “Éminence Grise”

Using her connections and access to the Point, Claude gives Jo some surveillance footage from the night of Spencer Harding’s escape. The video proves that Chief Rocca visited Jackson Dunn’s house before heading to Harding’s, confirming his involvement. The footage also shows two silhouettes remaining in Dunn’s home after Rocca left. One was Jackson, and Claude fears that the second unidentified figure may be Leonard Shaw. She also reveals that Dunn recently died in a bee swarm.

Jo and Claude find the police station closed due to the mold. As they jog nearby, they find Nessa’s daughter Breanna, who escaped from Rocca after he attempted to lure her into his police car by falsely claiming something had happened to her mother. At the same time, Nessa receives an email from a woman in Jamaica identifying the “Girl in Blue” (the ghost in her house) as her niece, Faith Reid. Furious, Nessa, Jo, and Claude drive to Rocca’s house to confront him.

Chapter 34 Summary: “Juliet Rocca’s Last Dish”

A flashback reveals the life of Juliet Rocca, the police chief’s wife. For years, she coped with her husband’s neglect and cruelty through compulsive baking, which eventually led to a severe eating disorder. Seeking help, she visited Harriett, who told her the illness stemmed from her refusal to see the truth about Rocca. Harriett gave her a bag containing three small white carrots and two index cards—one with a URL and one with instructions, including a note to purchase neoprene gloves. During a prescribed three-day fast spent staring at the ocean, Juliet accepted that John was a predator and that Amber Welsh, a girl who had burned his boat years earlier, had been telling the truth about him. Afterward, Juliet typed the URL into her phone and saw three pencil-drawn portraits; she recognized the third girl—the one who remained unidentified—as someone she knew.

The narrative returns to the present. As Jo, Nessa, and Claude confront Rocca on his deck, Juliet appears. As she speaks of Amber Welsh, Rocca begins to choke. Juliet then forces the rest of his coffee cake into his mouth, revealing that she has poisoned him.

Chapter 35 Summary: “Part Three”

Spencer Harding’s body washes up on Governors Island. At Harriett’s house, Jo and Nessa meet Isabel, who tells Nessa her chronic headaches are caused by her resistance to her gift. She urges Nessa to stop resisting, arguing that the women’s ability to see what has been done to the murdered girls is essential to knowing who to punish and who to protect. She speaks of a coming “third stage” of life, when older women must use their power to act against the corrupt world that men have built.

Jo receives a call from Amber Welsh, who thanks her for getting justice for her daughter, Mandy. Amber mentions that an unnamed charity helped her and her sons to relocate, on the condition that she never returns to Mattauk. Meanwhile, Nessa learns from Faith Reid’s aunt that Faith disappeared from Jamaica without a passport. Jo searches online and finds a photo of Leonard Shaw with local volunteers at one of his charity events in Jamaica; Faith appears in the photo. They realize that Leonard is connected to Faith’s disappearance and that Harriett, who is already on her way to Culling Pointe, may be in danger.

Chapter 36 Summary: “The Voices”

When Jo drives Nessa to Culling Pointe, Nessa is overwhelmed by the psychic presence of countless murdered girls. They find the property deserted and overgrown with Scotch broom. Claude lets them through the gate by golf cart, and the psychic onslaught causes Nessa to vomit. She tells Jo she can see the ghosts of more than a dozen victims. Jo realizes that all the wealthy men on the Pointe must be complicit.

Jo confronts Claude with evidence of Leonard’s connection to Faith Reid. Devastated by Leonard’s betrayal, Claude takes a nine iron from the golf cart and goes to the dock to confront him. Leonard admits his role, confessing that Rocca disposed of the bodies and that the other bodies would never be found. In a rage, Claude beats Leonard to death with the golf club. As she walks back up from the dock, Nessa sees Faith Reid’s ghost silently following her and realizes that Claude was also complicit in the girl’s disappearance.

Chapter 37 Summary: “When Faith Reid’s Serpent Held Its Tongue”

This chapter flashes back to the story of Faith Reid. For her 13th birthday, her mother gave her a family heirloom necklace with a serpent pendant. Her mother retold the story of Eden, casting the serpent as an ally who advised Eve to seek knowledge to protect herself from Adam, the true danger in the garden. The serpent, her mother explained, symbolizes a woman’s intuition—an inner voice of warning that Faith must always heed.

After her mother’s death, Faith’s intuition protected her from dangerous men, including Leonard Shaw, whose attention she refused. However, her intuition remained silent when she was approached by Claude, a kind woman who offered her an apartment in Brooklyn and help with schooling. Trusting Claude, Faith agreed to go with her.

Chapter 38 Summary: “The Monster”

A flashback reveals Claude’s past. Years ago, she discovered her partner Leonard was sexually involved with a 16-year-old girl at his Florida property. Leonard convinced her that exposing him would ruin her career and that this was simply how things worked among powerful men. He proposed a deal: Claude would procure young women for the men of Culling Pointe under a set of rules intended to ensure the women’s safety and compensation. In return, the men would donate millions annually to Leonard’s charities, which Claude would oversee and use to fund schools and self-defense programs for girls worldwide. Claude rationalized her role by believing that she was extracting good from an evil arrangement that she could not stop.

The system held until Spencer Harding arrived. Claude opposed admitting him to the Pointe, having heard troubling things about him, but Leonard overruled her and signed Spencer’s lease. After Rosamund told Claude about a girl who never showed up to a meeting after a Pointe party, Claude raised the alarm; Rocca assured her that the girl (Mandy) had likely run away. Claude later brought Faith Reid to the Pointe as a “gift” for Leonard, having recruited her in Jamaica, and Claude also personally took Polaroids of Faith for him. Leonard, fearing that Faith would resist him, “gave” her to Spencer instead. The next morning, Faith was missing. Spencer told Claude that Rocca had handled the matter of the girl but did not specify how. Two more girls were subsequently found dead. Concluding that Spencer had to be stopped, Claude replaced the cleaning fluid on his helicopter with a poisonous mixture and ensured that the cleaning person wore gloves and would not be harmed.

Chapter 39 Summary: “Burn It Down”

Guided by the ghost of Faith Reid, Nessa tells Jo that Claude was responsible for bringing girls to Culling Pointe. Claude confesses to being a procurer, admitting that she brought Faith to Spencer but rationalizing her actions by claiming that she forced the wealthy men to make charitable donations. Enraged by Claude’s betrayal, Jo fully embraces her pyrotechnic power and sets fire to the flammable Scotch broo. The blaze quickly engulfs the mansions on the Pointe.

As Claude attempts to escape in a boat, bringing with her with a laptop containing incriminating evidence, a flashback reveals Harriett’s childhood history: A young Harriet poisoned her abusive father after he murdered her mother. In the present, Harriett intercepts Claude on the beach, tricks her into giving up the laptop and its password, and then leaves her there to be killed by an exploding propane tank that strikes her boat. Jo and Nessa walk away from the destruction and meet Harriett, who emerges from the water with the retrieved laptop.

Epilogue Summary

The women have settled into new lives while continuing their vigilante justice. As Jo’s daughter Lucy procures multiple copies of the New York Times newspaper that details a review of Art’s play, Jo notices another article about the strange death of billionaire philanthropist John Willis, who was killed by a flock of seagulls. She also sees that Brendon Baker’s blighted house has been sold; Baker has fled town.

Nessa, now retired and living with Franklin, finds peace at Danskammer Beach. The spirits of the dead girls are gone, and the third victim has been identified as Mei Jones, a foster child who lived with Rocca’s family and whose disappearance he facilitated and then covered up. Culling Pointe has been destroyed in the fire, and the barren land has been donated to a conservation group.

Elsewhere, Harriett visits the garden of a corrupt CEO who frequented Culling Pointe and releases venomous spiders to await him. The three women and Lucy plan to meet for lunch later, their bond intact.

Chapter 31-Epilogue Analysis

As Nessa and Franklin renew their relationship, his investigative efforts on the girls’ behalf confirm that he can indeed be a trusted ally in the women’s wider goals. His spare bedroom, its walls “plastered with pictures of girls” (385), also functions as an early measure of how far the novel’s conspiracy extends, for these two dozen missing persons cases represent the systematic erasure that drives the novel’s critique of the Systemic Exploitation of Women. Franklin notes that “girls this age are often assumed to be runaways” (386), but he adds that they “don’t run away if they’re saving for nursing school” (386). This blunt correction names the mechanism by which Culling Pointe has secretly operated for years. The men who ran the network counted on exactly this institutional indifference, as many of the missing girls were from poor or distracted families, and many were girls of color or immigrants on work visas. As targets from marginalized groups, they were chosen because their disappearances would generate no sustained official pressure. When Nessa steps inside the gate at Culling Pointe in Chapter 36 and collapses under the weight of more than a dozen dead girls’ presences, the scale of that exploitation becomes concrete, for the murdered Lena Collins and Rosalia Cortez, named and documented in Franklin’s files, stand among an anonymous crowd selected for their disposability. This scene reemphasizes the novel’s reproduction of an Epstein-era cultural context, for like Epstein, the wealthy men of the novel use private enclaves, compliant law enforcement, and legal threats to sustain their networks of sexual abuse. Notably, the narrative structure is designed to evoke these real-world connections without naming its referents directly.

Miller adds further nuance with Claude’s backstory, asserting that corrupt men are not the only perpetrators of the Systemic Exploitation of Women. Having once been a target of such corruption, Claude has chosen a method of survival that relies on her complicity with the very men she despises, and she has deluded herself that she is wresting some good from the evil actions that she facilitates. When Leonard first confronts Claude about Clio, he offers a set of rationalizations, saying, “This is how things work” (456), and Claude converts that logic into an operational structure for her own benefit. She institutes rules at Culling Pointe, extracting charitable donations from the male abusers whose excesses she enables. She even delivers a self-justifying pep talk to the girls who cry after being abused. Essentially, Claude plays an active role in normalizing serial abuse, and the charity funding that flows from the arrangement—including, crucially, the money that trains Jo’s self-defense students—ensures that its taint reaches even the novel’s protagonists. Her final argument to Jo, that the men’s donations are “helping us teach girls how to protect themselves from predators” (461-62), captures the bitter absurdity of the arrangement, and Claude’s rationalizations collapse into so much ash when a furious Jo ignites the first Scotch broom bush. The novel thus allows Claude no chance for redemption despite her violence against Leonard, for Faith Reid’s ghost follows Claude up from the dock in a silent condemnation.

Against this dramatic backdrop, Faith’s chapter deploys the serpent pendant as a symbol that illustrates the limitations of intuition as women attempt to protect each other. Faith’s mother gives her a retelling of the biblical story of Eden, recasting the notorious serpent as an advisor who warns Eve against Adam and counsels her to acquire knowledge and leave a garden controlled by masculine desire. The pendant becomes Faith’s emblem of that warning, but her mother’s words cannot protect her against Claude’s deception and betrayal, for the woman acts on behalf of male abusers but presents herself as a fellow woman offering education, community, and safety. The serpent’s failure to speak emphasizes the idea that most dangerous enemies of women are sometimes other women who have “mastered the games men play” and have chosen to “betray their own kind” (436). While the oversimplified tenets of Miller’s narrative world tend to pit men and women against each other as instinctive enemies, misleadingly portraying each faction as a monolithic force, Claude’s actions do accurately reflect the idea that such systemic exploitation can often weaponize trust itself.

Harriett’s garden and the motif of weeds and invasive species reach their operational conclusion when Jo ignites the Scotch broom at Culling Pointe. The plant has been growing wild since Harriett’s first visits to the Pointe, proliferating across every manicured lawn so that its flammability will make the enclave’s destruction total and swift. By igniting the Scotch broom, Jo spontaneously fulfills Harriett’s careful, months-long planning, Channeling Anger to Enact Change. Jo recognizes this when she laughs at her earlier concern for Harriett’s safety and reflects that Harriett “planted these fucking bushes” and has “known what would happen since Memorial Day” (462). In this moment, the rising vengeance that has been heavily foreshadowed throughout the novel finally takes full effect.

While Jo and Harriett’s abilities take center stage during the novel’s fiery climax, Nessa’s arc across these chapters tracks a different dimension of Menopause as a Source of Empowerment. Whereas Jo’s power manifests as heat and Harriett’s as control over living organisms, Nessa’s gift is perceptual, and only her ability to see and interact with ghosts gives the trio’s quest a real purpose and direction. These chapters chart Nessa’s movement from resistance to full acceptance of her gift and its moral implications. Only when Nessa finally ventures onto Culling Pointe does she fully accept her gift and her responsibility, and she reads Faith’s ghost accurately enough to expose Claude’s complicity and fuel Jo’s deadly fury. Thus, Nessa is the true catalyst that causes the destruction of Culling Pointe. Likewise, the epilogue places Nessa retired at Danskammer Beach, when the dead girls’ presences have at last faded away, and this resolution makes it clear that she has reached the “third stage” of her life, the period in which she uses her hard-won experience to protect those the world discards.