This Is Not About Us: Fiction
52 pages • 1-hour read
Allegra GoodmanThis Is Not About Us: Fiction
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Chapters 14-17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of emotional abuse and disordered eating.
Chapter 14 Summary: “$”
Steve learned years ago not to talk to anyone in his family about money, particularly his own money troubles. After losing his job, Steve stays silent about his financial concerns. At home, however, he and Andrea discuss the possibility of Steve starting a career in teaching now that he is no longer in the publishing business. Instead, Steve works with a headhunter named Charlotte, but she informs him that he is too old to qualify for most open positions in his field.
Finally, one day, a determined Steve decides to reach out to Jeff, an old mutual friend of his and Dan’s. He recently learned that Jeff now owns and operates his own publishing house. Andrea is shocked to discover that Steve is contacting Jeff and criticizes his email. Even so, Steve sends the note to Jeff.
Steve and Jeff meet up at Panera Bread, where Jeff tells Steve all about his independent publishing house. They not only design and edit the books they publish, but they also write the stories that their clients pitch to them. He gives Steve a trial assignment.
Back at home, Steve stays up late working on the assignment. He feels silly ghostwriting a story about “a family history of life in the Old Country” (238), but he perseveres anyway. After submitting the draft to Jeff, he waits for a response. Meanwhile, something goes wrong with his car, and he has to replace the steering column. He is reluctant to go through with the repairs until he receives a positive message from Jeff about his assignment.
Over dinner, Steve is congratulating himself on his writing assignment when Jeff calls to say that the author wants edits. She particularly wants Steve to write the story with a cozier tone. Steve is reluctant to persist with the assignment, but Jeff is encouraging. After the call, Steve tells Andrea that he’s going to give up and look for something else. However, he ends up taking his computer to the bar and writing until closing time. He finishes the draft and sends it off to Jeff. When Andrea sees it in the morning, she critiques the work, but Steve feels proud of himself.
Days pass without word from Jeff, and even though Steve checks in several times, he gets no response. Finally, he tells Andrea that he is going to pursue teaching after all. Soon after this conversation, Jeff calls to say that the author loved Steve’s draft. When he quotes the amount of the payment, Steve realizes that he can’t make ends meet on that kind of money. He tells Jeff that he doesn’t think he’s going to pursue the position, but Jeff insists that he take his time before deciding. He assures Steve that there are countless assignments for him. Afterward, Steve considers his future and wishes that he had gone into a different field. Then he tells himself that he can still be the poet he has always wanted to be.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Nutcracker”
As Christmas approaches, Lily and Sophie prepare for the Nutcracker ballet with their dance studio. Debra feels weighed down by the preparations and practices. She hates taking the girls to class and doesn’t like being involved. Worst of all, she hates the girls’ instructor, Nastia. She starts hearing rumors about Nastia’s meanness, and she worries that attending the classes is not good for the girls.
After ballet one day, Debra witnesses another girl named Emma emerging from the restroom in tears. Then she overhears the mothers discussing how critical Nastia has been of Emma. On the way home, Debra questions the girls about their relationships with Nastia, determined to find out if the instructor is cruel to them, too. Sophie and Lily say nothing. Then at dinner, Sophie refuses to eat and runs upstairs, and Debra demands to know the truth about Nastia. Finally, Sophie admits that Nastia told her to stop eating bread because she needs to lose weight. A furious Debra insists on calling Nastia, but the girls are afraid of getting kicked out of the class; they love dance.
An overwhelmed Debra calls her parents for advice. Cindy and Ed insist that Debra pull them out of the studio and find them somewhere else to dance, but Debra still isn’t sure what to do. She talks to her therapist Suzanne and her sister Becca about the situation, but she cannot decide whether she is overreacting. Becca suggests that she task Richard with pulling the girls out of dance.
Debra calls Richard and tells him about the issue with Nastia. An argument ensues. Richard agrees that the girls shouldn’t work with Nastia anymore, and he doesn’t understand why Debra is saying the girls won’t quit. Debra is frustrated with Richard for refusing to parent alongside her. She suddenly remembers “why they [are] no longer married” (263). However, she agrees to let the girls go through with the Nutcracker and then reassess the matter afterward.
Debra becomes upset again when she attends the girls’ dress rehearsal. She can’t understand how the daughters she raised with feminist values have come to love dance so much. Finally, she attends the final performance with her parents and Becca. Becca remarks on Heather’s size when she arrives, as the pregnant Heather is close to full term. During the performance, Debra feels proud of her daughters. Afterward, Becca remarks on how good Lily’s dancing skills are, asserting that she is better than Sophie and many of the others. Debra doesn’t want to admit it, but she knows that her family is right; the girls are good at dance. She decides to let them stay with the studio, privately wondering how long it will take the girls to outgrow the activity.
Chapter 16 Summary: “Deal Breaker”
Pam starts seeing a man named John. Although she really likes him and they’ve been going out for several months, she doesn’t tell anyone about him. She is particularly afraid to tell her mother because John “is not Jewish” (271). Pam is also waiting to meet John’s daughter, Isabella, who is a freshman in high school. John talks effusively about Isabella and makes plans for the three of them to visit the Isabella Stuart Gardner museum together. However, every time they’re meant to go, something comes up in Isabella’s schedule. John also gets caught up with his ex-wife and daughter. On one occasion, Pam expresses a wish for them to spend more time together, and John assures her they will someday.
When Pam celebrates Thanksgiving with her parents, she is shocked that Sylvia and Lew aren’t there, as they live nearby. She is equally surprised that Helen seems more subdued than usual. She finds herself telling her parents about John. They don’t mind that he’s not Jewish and are thrilled by what she tells them of Isabella. When she reveals that John’s ex-wife’s name is Alison Friedlander, they insist that she must be Jewish, which would make Isabella Jewish, too. Pam begs them not to get their hopes up, revealing that she hasn’t even met Isabella yet. Pam ends up staying at her parents’ longer than she normally would. They enjoy their time and Pam promises to keep them updated on her trip to the Gardner.
However, John postpones the trip repeatedly over the following weeks. Finally, Pam loses her temper when John cancels yet again because his ex-wife Alison broke her foot. John thinks that Pam is being insensitive, but Pam believes that John is putting her off. An argument ensues, and Pam decides not to see him anymore.
Pam doesn’t contact her parents, convinced they already suspect something happened with John. When they finally call, she admits that the relationship is over and that she never met Isabella. Her parents are disappointed, but they don’t shame her. Instead, they remind her that she is welcome at their home anytime.
Chapter 17 Summary: “Poppy”
Sylvia and Helen do not talk to each other for two years. Sylvia cannot understand how their estrangement has persisted for so long, and she wishes that Helen would just apologize. Meanwhile, she hopes that some other crisis will soften Helen.
One day, Richard calls to announce that he and Heather are engaged and that Heather is pregnant. Sylvia feels happy until she realizes that Helen will hold this against her, too, because Helen doesn’t have any grandchildren. Lew urges Sylvia to let the matter go and keep Helen out of it. Meanwhile, they argue with Richard about how to help prepare for a grandchild without knowing the child’s sex.
Heather goes into labor in December. Sylvia panics when she gets the news because Heather is giving birth with a midwife at home. They race to see their son, his family, and new child.
Sylvia is overcome by joy when she meets her new grandson, who doesn’t have a name yet. Although she is delighted with the baby, she is horrified to hear that Richard let Sophie watch the entire birth. She then texts Helen the news but receives no reply; all of her messages to Helen for the last two years have gone unanswered. Sylvia privately laments the loss of another sister.
The following week, the family hosts the bris, or circumcision and naming ceremony. Sylvia is delighted when the family announces that the baby will be named Mordechai, after her late father who went by Morris. However, she is horrified when Debra reveals that they’re going to call the baby Charlie. Even so, Sylvia refrains from saying anything.
After the bris, the family holds a reception. Sylvia doesn’t eat anything and is shocked that they didn’t hire a caterer. The family realizes that she looks unwell, and they all return home, where Wendy presents Heather with a gift from Helen for the baby. Everyone is surprised to see that the gift is a collection of Wendy and Pam’s childhood books. Heather insists that Wendy take them back, but Wendy wants the baby to have them. Sylvia sits back and watches her family, musing on all that Charlie has yet to learn.
Chapters 14-17 Analysis
The final chapters of the novel revisit several of the primary Rubinstein family members’ storylines in order to further the novel’s overarching themes. In each chapter, the characters are faced with another conflict that challenges them to balance their perception of themselves as individuals with their roles in the context of their family network. These constant struggles illustrate the finer nuances of The Tension Between Personal Autonomy and Familial Expectations. This issue is particularly evident in Chapter 14, “$,” for with Steve’s job loss, he must make a difficult choice. He can either abandon his dream of becoming a career poet and start teaching high school, or he can boldly chase his dreams before it is too late. His ghostwriting gig with Jeff offers him the opportunity to express himself through another writer’s imagined story, and when Steve realizes that he is succeeding at the work, he feels buoyant and energetic. This development convinces him that his dreams might be within reach. Although he wavers in the face of his financial troubles and considers going into a more stable career in accordance with his wife’s preferences, he ultimately decides on a writing career, musing that he “could be a poet still” (248). His internal resolve implies that all acts of personal autonomy originate from determination and a healthy amount of hope despite the odds against him. Steve doesn’t want his family’s expectations to dampen his sense of self, so he chooses to invest in his own capacity for transformation.
While Chapters 15, 16, and 17 depict Debra, Pam, and Sylvia’s respective struggles to find their place within the family structure, these chapters collectively illustrate the primary characters’ efforts to focus on offering grace, understanding, and reconciliation to their loved ones. In Chapter 15, “Nutcracker,” Debra finds herself in conflict with her daughters’ passion for ballet, chafing at the idea that they are abandoning the feminist values that she taught them. The issues forces her to question her very sense of self, for she wonders, “How had she become one of these mothers waiting at rehearsal? That was not her. Not her at all” (264). Even so, Debra decides to let Sophie and Lily continue dancing with the studio despite her disapproval of the activity and all it represents. This decision is inspired by her care for her daughters, for when she witnesses them “bound[ing] backstage and link[ing] arms with their dance friends and laugh[ing] and pranc[ing] and pos[ing] for photos” (264), she understands that what they want and enjoy is more important than the perceived dissolution of her own values. Her resolution illustrates one of The Myriad Forms of Love and Caretaking, for she supports her daughter’s youthful joy and enthusiasm even when it doesn’t manifest in the way she expected.
In the final two chapters, “Deal Breaker” and “Poppy,” Pam, Helen, and Sylvia find themselves making similar concessions to foster loving relationships with their family members. In “Chapter 16, “Deal Breaker,” Pam finds herself confiding in her parents about her new relationship troubles despite her habit of keeping them at a distance. She initially fears that they will judge John harshly because he is not Jewish or young and “is mostly bald,” with “bad” knees (271). She later fears that they will be disappointed in her because she hasn’t met John’s daughter and because she chooses to end the relationship. However, she soon discovers that in showing vulnerability to Helen and Charles, she makes it possible to forge a deeper connection with them. Finally, in Chapter 17, “Poppy,” Sylvia learns to withhold her opinions for the sake of supporting her son and his expanding family. Throughout the chapter, she remains in a constant state of shock as she witnesses a barrage of unexpected changes in Richard’s life. She doesn’t understand why he and Heather are having a baby before getting married, or why Heather has had a home birth that Sophie was allowed to witness. Her shock intensifies when they decide to call Mordechai by the name of Charlie. However, she has learned that remarking on these diversions from custom will not make her family feel loved, so she chooses to remain silent. As with Helen and Debra, Sylvia is discovering that motherhood—and thus love and caregiving—doesn’t always require direct intervention. Instead, love can be expressed simply by showing quiet support and being present.
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