48 pages • 1-hour read
When Life Gives You Lululemons
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Part 1, Chapters 1-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of religious discrimination, addiction, and substance use.
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “Again With the Nazi Getup?: Emily”
Thirty-six-year-old Emily Charlton attends a lavish New Year’s Eve party with her husband Miles in Los Angeles. Sipping a margarita and studying the scene, she feels old and out of place. Then she receives a call from Helene, the manager of Rizzo, “the hottest pop star” since Justin Bieber (4). Rizzo showed up at a party wearing a Nazi uniform, and Helene wants to hire Emily to do damage control in the media. Emily has been working as an image consultant in Hollywood for the stars since leaving her job with Miranda Priestley at Runway. She eagerly accepts the offer, tells Miles she got a new job, heads home to pack, and arranges a flight back to New York City.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “Living the Dream: Miriam”
Miriam Kagan takes a short run on New Year’s morning, giving up just a few minutes in. Back at home, she finds her husband Paul Kagan making pancakes for her children Benjamin, Matthew, and Maisie. Miriam declines pancakes, desperate to lose weight. She has gained several pounds since leaving her high-powered legal job in the city and moving to Greenwich, Connecticut.
Then she sees a headline about her former high school classmate, Karolina Hartwell. Karolina is a former Victoria’s Secret and L’Oréal model and senator Graham Hartwell’s wife. She was pulled over for driving under the influence with children in the car. A shocked Miriam calls Karolina to confirm this is true. She leaves a message and shoves a pancake into her mouth.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Like a Common Criminal: Karolina”
On New Year’s Eve, Karolina drives her 12-year-old stepson, Harry, and his friends home. Harry’s friends spent the evening celebrating at Karolina’s Bethesda, Maryland, house without Graham. Only moments into the drive, Karolina gets pulled over. The police demand that she get out of the car, and they accuse her of being drunk. She only had half a glass of wine, so she insists that she is sober and that they give her a sobriety test. They refuse, arrest her, and bring her to the station.
At the station, Karolina can’t get hold of Graham. She calls Graham’s friend and lawyer Trip, who arrives shortly thereafter. He apologizes for everything that’s happened and explains that the cops found empty champagne bottles in the back of the car and are saying she refused a sobriety test. An incensed Karolina insists otherwise and promises the bottles weren’t hers.
Trip drives Karolina to her mother-in-law Elaine’s house, where the police brought Harry last night. Karolina is shocked to find Graham there. Instead of apologizing, he blames her for what happened, reminding her how bad this is for his image.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Some of My Best Friends Are Jewish: Emily”
Emily arrives at the Freedom Tower in Manhattan for her meeting with Helene and Rizzo. During the meeting, Rizzo passes off what he did as a harmless joke. Emily suggests how they’ll clear up his image for the public, but Rizzo isn’t interested. Helene dismisses Emily and calls her shortly thereafter to say Rizzo plans to hire Emily’s competitor, Olivia Belle, instead. Distraught, Emily calls her friend Miriam and explains the situation. A sympathetic Miriam invites Emily to come stay with her in Greenwich.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “Just Give Up. I Have: Miriam”
Miriam hosts Emily for the next few days. One morning, Miriam returns from her exercise class, and the friends discuss their lives. Emily admits she is depressed. She misses Miles, who is about to leave on a work trip to Hong Kong, and her business is failing. Miriam suggests that Emily just give up on everything the way she has. Emily loves Miriam, as they’ve been friends since childhood, but she is skeptical of Miriam’s new life.
Miriam receives a call from Karolina that interrupts the conversation. Karolina is at her Greenwich house and invites Miriam over. When Emily hears what’s going on, she insists on joining. She met Karolina countless times when she worked at Runway.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “Just a Cottage in the Country: Karolina”
Karolina is staying at their Greenwich house, even though when she and Graham originally bought it, she was skeptical. She hadn’t wanted to leave the city. They spent months looking for the right place, finally settling on the palatial 35 Honeysuckle Lane. At that time, Karolina and Graham’s marriage was idyllic. They enjoyed each other’s company and “threw lavish parties and extravagant dinners” (50). Greenwich was a nice place for their son Harry to spend time, too. However, Graham’s political career soon took off, sending the family back to Bethesda, and things changed drastically in the years following.
Harry, who is still in Bethesda with Graham, texts Karolina about what to wear to his dance. Karolina wishes she could be with him. Then Miriam arrives. Karolina notices Emily in the car. She remembers her from her Runway days and insists she come in.
Karolina tells Miriam and Emily about everything that’s going on. It’s only been a few days since the incident, but already her mom-friends have snubbed her. Graham has also made it clear that he doesn’t want her around Harry right now and that it’s best for her to be in Greenwich. Her friends wonder if Harry and his friends were the ones drinking the champagne. Emily also inquires if Graham might be having an affair; a surprised Karolina admits he has been sleeping with the former president’s daughter, Regan Whitney. Emily suggests he is using Regan to advance his career. The friends decide to eat cookies to make themselves feel better.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “Vodka and Tampax: A Match Made in Greenwich: Emily”
Emily tries to complete some work at the local Starbucks but is distracted by a group of sporty-looking moms talking about liquor-soaked tampons. She turns her attention back to her computer, horrified when she discovers her long-time client, Kim Kelly, is firing her. She sends back an angry email, and when Miles calls, she quickly answers. He reassures her when she tells him about Kim Kelly. Off the phone, she catches the Lululemon-clad moms sneering at her and tells them to mind their own business.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “Happy to Sip and Not to See: Miriam”
After sending the kids off to school, Miriam crawls back into bed and tries initiating sex with Paul. He isn’t interested and instead asks about her day. A disappointed Miriam tells him about the sip ’n’ see party she’s attending, where a friend is showing off her baby to the other mothers.
Miriam agrees to let Emily join her at the party. Her friend Ashley is thrilled to meet Emily; she followed her career with Runway and Kim Kelly. Emily feigns niceness and makes snarky comments to Miriam throughout the rest of the party. Studying the scene, Miriam gets a stab of longing for her old life in New York.
Part 1, Chapters 1-8 Analysis
The narrative of When Life Gives You Lululemons is told from the third-person point of view, and in each chapter, the narrator follows one of the three main characters: Emily Charlton, Miriam Kagan, and Karolina Hartwell. In Chapter 1, for example, the narrator depicts episodes from Emily’s life, while in Chapters 2 and 3, she depicts episodes from Miriam and Karolina’s lives. The alternating point of view formally introduces the novel’s thematic explorations of the Transformative Power of Female Friendship as it traces the individual circumstances of each woman and what brings them together. At the novel’s start, Emily, Miriam, and Karolina are each feeling isolated and alone for different reasons. Emily’s career is failing, and she is forced to spend time away from her husband. Miriam has given up her career and life in New York City for a quieter suburban life in Greenwich, Connecticut. Karolina loses contact with her son and access to her home when she is unfairly arrested for drunk driving. These individual experiences compel the women into the same physical space: Emily, Miriam, and Karolina all end up in Greenwich. These unexpected circumstances offer them opportunities for connection, camaraderie, and community amidst a difficult time for each of them. The narrative structure enacts their intersecting lives and formally foreshadows how their burgeoning friendships will change them over the course of the novel.
The Greenwich, Connecticut setting introduces the novel’s theme of Privilege and Hypocrisy in Suburban Elite Culture. Because Emily, Miriam, and Karolina are three distinct individuals, they each have different perspectives on the elite suburban town where they find themselves. Miriam tells herself that she and her family are “so lucky to live in a place like this” and that she mustn’t “take it for granted” (41). She is genuinely grateful that her three young children have more space and can now own and enjoy “the tangle of toys in the garage that, in New York [they] hadn’t even known existed—bikes, sleds, skis, Rollerblades, scooters” (41). For Miriam personally, however, Greenwich is harder to acclimate to. Leaving the city forced her to abandon her legal career and to leave behind the place and people she knew best. In Greenwich, she is surrounded by wealthy mothers who wear “Lululemon leggings with elaborate mesh cutouts” and look “like a mobile Christmas card” (10). She does not fit in in Greenwich despite her attempts to assimilate. The same is true for Emily and Karolina. Emily is caught between her current life in Los Angeles and her past life in New York. She feels like “a washed-up, middle-aged Luddite” and does not know where she belongs or what to do next (39). Her misfit personality only stands out more in Greenwich, where the women are wealthy and judgmental. They misunderstand Emily’s sardonic sense of humor and readily judge Karolina. While Greenwich broadcasts a culture of happiness, fitness, and peace, Emily, Miriam, and Karolina readily discover how superficial the town is.
The three main characters’ fraught relationships with Greenwich promise to tighten their connections with each other—although they were never close before, they are drawn to each other by their isolation. When Karolina arrives back in Greenwich, she returns to an empty house haunted by the life she and her family were meant to have here. She stares out at the lawn, “desperately waiting for Miriam” because she is eager for company and connection amidst her social alienation (51). Emily similarly clings to Miriam and Karolina because of her own isolation. She does not fit in in Greenwich, but she does need friendship to survive her current circumstances. She not only attends the sip ’n’ see party but she also joins Miriam and Karolina at Karolina’s house, decisions that underscore her need for connection. The images of the three women sharing space and conversation underscore the necessity of their dynamic. Miriam, too, is alone and needs women with whom she can connect authentically. While discussing Karolina’s scandal and Graham’s affair, Karolina finds herself feeling surprisingly good: “Karolina burst out laughing. She was crazy and emotional, and her life was spiraling completely out of control, but damn, it felt nice just to laugh” (58). Her time with Miriam and Emily inspires this moment of genuine relief. None of the three women is entirely content in their new suburban circumstances, but they are quickly discovering that together life is both tenable and enjoyable.
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