The Quitters Club: A Novel
The Quitters Club: A Novel
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Chapters 25-31Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses illness and death.
Chapter 25 Summary: “Marie”
Marie finds Sullivan’s daughter, Sara, waiting for her at the house. Marie is initially hostile, recalling the antagonistic relationship between Collins and Sara. Marie believes that Sara never responded to calls after Collins’s accident, but Sara insists that she did call Collins repeatedly, and Collins texted her back asking her to stop. She explains that she has come to make amends and offer help.
Sara reveals that months before Sullivan’s death, he visited her gallery and asked her to manage his artistic estate, but she refused, saying that Collins was the only one he could trust. Sara was angry because of the strained history between she and her father. In the wake of Sullivan’s death and now Collins’s injury and illness, Sara regrets her decision and wants to help. Marie questions whether this conversation ever happened and Sara admits there is no way to prove it, but she regrets leaving Collins alone to manage Sullivan’s estate.
Later, Marie discusses Sara’s story with Brooke and Lucy. They wonder if it will be beneficial or harmful to tell Collins about Sara’s offer to help. Lucy suggests they ask Travis if Sullivan ever mentioned this conversation. Brooke volunteers to speak with Collins to get her permission for Sara to visit and to gently ask if her fall on the mountain was intentional.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Lucy”
Lucy receives a text from her agent, Delia, about a phone call they need to discuss. Avoiding the call, Lucy goes to the university library to work on an assignment for Marie’s class. While at the library, a classmate, Paige, invites Lucy to join a panel at an upcoming MBA Symposium in Chicago. Paige explains that the panel is for students who were previously self-employed and are now using their graduate degree to pivot professionally. Lucy realizes the symposium is being held at Enzo’s school. Seeing a convenient reason to visit him, she agrees to participate.
Chapter 27 Summary: “Brooke”
After an OB-GYN appointment, Brooke calls Mitch, who is still in Europe. Overall, the pregnancy is progressing well, although there are some concerns about elevated blood pressure. She feels a growing emotional distance as he describes his transformative travel experience. Later, Brooke visits Collins at the hospital, and they reconcile after their previous fight.
Collins confides in Brooke. She reflects on memories of her marriage and how happy she was with Sullivan. Collins also knows about the rumors that Sullivan’s death was not an accident, and these rumors make her grief even more painful. Collins says that going to the retreat was a mistake she knew she wasn’t ready for, and that sleeping with Travis months earlier had been upsetting and unsettling for her. When Brooke directly asks what happened during her fall, Collins denies any intention of self-harm, stating her last memory is of feeling peaceful and grateful. Feeling that their friendship is repaired, Collins gives Brooke permission for Sara to visit and to share the details of her medical diagnosis.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Marie”
Marie takes the items salvaged from Sullivan’s studio back to home she shares with Kyle. (She cannot bring them to Collins’s home, as Collins does not want any objects from the studio anywhere nearby). Kyle helps Marie with the task and they find smoke-damaged memorabilia, including a locked metal file cabinet. Kyle agrees to try picking the cabinet’s lock.
Afterward, Marie and Kyle discuss their separation. Kyle tells her he is not interested in living separately, stating that split houses can be hard on kids and it is not what he wants for their family. When Marie explains the difficulties of leaving her job as a tenured professor, Kyle offers no alternative solutions or compromises, leaving them at an impasse.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Lucy”
Delia calls Lucy and informs her that the viral success of her essay about quitting has caused a surge in her backlist book sales. As a result, her publisher wants to offer her a new book deal for triple her previous advance. Lucy initially objects, arguing that writing another novel would make her essay a lie. Delia counters that readers connected with her story of burnout and would celebrate her return. Lucy agrees to consider the possibility of writing another book.
Later, Lucy runs into Marie who is meeting with Sara. Marie has given Sara some items salvaged from the burnt studio and Sara is very moved by them. However, Marie reveals that when Kyle opened the filing cabinet, everything inside had been burnt to ashes.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Brooke”
Brooke establishes a daily walking routine to cope with her growing anxiety about her relationship with Mitch. One day, she finds Marie’s son, Connor, upset after classmates teased him about his parents’ separation. Brooke comforts him, saying that families don’t have to look the way others expect and that his feelings are what truly matter.
At her next prenatal appointment, Brooke breaks down, confessing her fears that she and Mitch are growing apart. Her doctor is reassuring, suggesting that parenthood and travel are not mutually exclusive. She gives Brooke information for a support group called Have Baby, Will Travel. The conversation, combined with the advice she gave Connor, leaves Brooke feeling more hopeful about her own unconventional future.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Marie”
Marie, Lucy, and Brooke arrive to visit Collins at her rehabilitation hospital, but as they arrive, they see a distraught Sara rushing away in tears. They find Collins furious. Sara has revealed that the friends went to Sullivan’s former studio and retrieved items from the burnt space. She has also told Collins that Marie gave her some of the mementos, including a mug. Collins sees it as a betrayal that the friends went to the studio despite her instructions to ignore the calls from the landlord. She fears that handing over the retrieved items to Sara has strengthened Sara’s belief that Sullivan wanted her to manage his estate.
Collins’s anger erupts, and she lashes out at everyone. She calls Marie a coward for not resolving her marital situation. She reveals Lucy’s secret book deal and accuses Brooke of taking Mitch for granted while being in denial about her pregnancy. The argument escalates as the friends turn on one another, airing resentments. Lucy declares she is out of the Quitters Club, Brooke follows, and Collins says she was never really in but is definitely out now. The pact is broken, and Marie is left feeling isolated but newly determined to focus on her own life.
Chapters 25-31 Analysis
The introduction of Sara initially seems to position her as an antagonist. However, her presence rapidly becomes ambiguous and deepens the theme of Learning to Live with Grief, demonstrating that the process involves not only mourning the deceased but also reckoning with unresolved relationships and personal regrets. Marie’s decision to listen to Sara, moving past her initial protective hostility, signals a shift from simple, unconditional loyalty to a more subtle understanding of the situation. This empathy allows for the possibility that Sara could become part of a solution, challenging the established friend-versus-foe dynamic that has defined Collins’s struggle.
Collins’s dynamic with Sara reflects the volatile emotional dynamics of raw grief: She moves from suspicion and dislike to cautious openness, to fury, when she realizes that Marie and Lucy have visited the studio and given some of the items they uncovered to Sara. The physical items salvaged from Sullivan’s studio fire—the Saugatuck mug and the incinerated contents of a locked file cabinet—operate as contrasting emblems of what can and cannot be recovered from the past. The fire-damaged ceramic mug becomes a talisman for Sara, who sees its survival as a “sign” (228) that validates her desire to make amends. It is a tangible fragment of her last encounter with her father, an object that allows for reinterpretation and provides a catalyst for healing. Conversely, the file cabinet, whose contents were destroyed, symbolizes absolute and irretrievable loss. Whatever truths or secrets Sullivan chose to preserve are now permanently gone, forcing the characters to build a future based on faith and memory rather than definitive evidence. This duality speaks directly to the ambiguities of grief; the narrative suggests that moving forward requires both embracing the pieces of the past that can be salvaged and accepting the parts that are lost forever.
While Collins continues to navigate grief and illness, the other women explore their own shifting perceptions of choice, agency, and constraint, illustrating the theme of Boundaries Providing Empowerment. Lucy’s analysis of Shel Silverstein’s poem “The Bagpipe Who Didn’t Say No,” is a direct exploration of boundaries. She identifies with the titular bagpipe, whose silence is misinterpreted as consent, a dynamic that mirrors her own experience of allowing the publishing industry’s demands and indifference to lead to professional burnout. The essay becomes a space for Lucy to articulate the very principles she has failed to apply in her own life: that “failing to speak up could hurt not only yourself, but others” (201). This intellectual work is not merely an academic diversion but an important step in her personal development. At the same time, Lucy’s somewhat narrow focus on boundaries and saying no leaves her resistant to new opportunities: She is hesitant to consider a new book contract.
The narrative juxtaposes Brooke and Marie’s diverging paths to highlight the challenges of navigating unconventional relationships and family structures. While comforting Marie’s son, Connor, Brooke articulates a central insight: “Families don’t have to look the way other people expect them to” (235). This advice becomes a personal mantra as she later receives information about the “Have Baby, Will Travel” group, which offers a framework for integrating parenthood with personal freedom rather than sacrificing one for the other. Brooke begins to envision a flexible, self-defined future, demonstrating an adaptive approach that brings together multiple possibilities. In sharp contrast, Marie’s conversation with Kyle about living apart indefinitely ends in an impasse. Kyle rejects the arrangement based on conventional fears about its effect on their children, refusing to acknowledge the professional and personal necessities driving Marie’s decision. His inability to compromise leaves Marie stalled, reinforcing the novel’s tension between a woman’s need for an equitable partnership and the resistance she meets from traditional ideals.
While the women struggle with competing desires and priorities, the climactic argument in Collins’s hospital room exposes the resentments and avoidant behaviors that the pact inadvertently enabled. Collins’s accusations function as a brutal but necessary catalyst, forcing a moment of collective truth. The confrontation and raw honesty seemingly undermine but actually underscore the theme of Friendship and Collectivity as the Foundation of Individual Change. It forces each woman to confront her choices and reckon with what she is still resisting. The fight functions as the inverse of the pact at the beach house. While the former was joyful and exciting, the latter reveals the raw emotional honesty that is necessary for true transformation. The confrontation also strains the friendship between the women but doesn’t ultimately damage it, revealing the resilience and strength of their bond.
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