The Summer Guests

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, substance use, emotional abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, and death.

One way The Summer Guests builds tensions is through the difference between appearances and reality. Introduced through the symbolism of Maiden Pond, the theme develops through revelations about the true motivations and actions of characters such as Luther Younge, Reuben Tarkin, and, most notably, Brooke Conover. In particular, the novel warns about the interplay between perception and appearance; when appearances deceive, it is often because of the preconceptions and prejudices attached to them. 

Maiden Pond appears beautiful and tranquil on the surface, but under the water are Anna’s bones, evidence of the tragic crimes that have taken place there. Coupled with the lake’s name (specifically, its association with idealized femininity), this foreshadows the difference between the appearance and the reality of Brooke Conover. Outwardly, Brooke seems like the put-together, beautiful wife of a wealthy Wall Street businessman; she is one half of “the golden couple” (17), as Ethan and Susan refer to them. She appears to be a devoted, caring mother who goes out of her way to comfort Susan following the disappearance of Zoe. However, the novel’s climax reveals her to be a violent, manipulative murderer who has concealed her crime even from her husband. Moreover, instead of caring for her son, she has manipulated him into being an accomplice to her crimes, at the expense of his own mental health and well-being. The extent of her manipulation of her son, Kit, becomes clear when she attempts to reassure him that putting Susan in the pond to drown her is not murder because “it’s the water that will do it, not [them]” (295). There are even hints that she deliberately made her son sick—a symbolic perversion of a mother’s conventional caretaking role that reinforces the broader disjunct between the feminine ideal Brooke seems to embody and who she truly is.

In contrast to Brooke, Luther and Reuben appear “suspicious” but ultimately are revealed to be good people who are innocent of the major crimes of which they have been accused. Luther is a farmer, and the time he spends working outdoors results in an unkempt appearance when he is brought in for questioning. He strikes onlookers as “a wild man” (122), and even his friend Jo reflects that he “look[s] the part of a dangerous man” (119). He also has a gruff, misanthropic personality, telling Detective Alfond that “cows are likeable animals” (120), unlike people. He comes under suspicion because he was the last known person to see Zoe alive, and her blood is found in his car. However, he is exonerated when Zoe’s blood is proven to be menstrual blood—a quite literal instance of appearances misleading. More broadly, the characters’ reactions to Luther suggest a degree of class prejudice, as there is nothing inherently suspicious about his appearance; it simply does not conform to middle-class, white-collar norms. Similarly, Reuben has a disheveled appearance and a gruff personality. He acts suspiciously by staring at Moonview cottage from across the pond and allegedly doing minor acts of vandalism like sabotaging George Conover’s canoe. However, it is ultimately revealed that Reuben had nothing to do with the death of Anna or Zoe’s disappearance. Indeed, he is a caring person who works as a full-time caretaker for his sister and simply wants justice for his father, whom the CIA’s indifference and negligence killed. If Brooke serves as a warning that class privilege and gender conformity can shield a person from scrutiny, Luther and Reuben remind readers that biases like classism can also subject individuals to undue scrutiny.