Summer Island: A Novel

“Reviewers claimed that she could see a way through any emotional conflict; more often than not, they mentioned the purity of her heart.

But they were wrong. It was the impurity in her heart that made her successful. She was an ordinary woman who’d made extraordinary mistakes. She understood every nuance of need and loss.”

From the beginning of the novel, Nora is haunted by the secrets she keeps buried from her family, her adoring public, and herself. She knows her relationship with her secrets is complicated: Without them, her advice wouldn’t be as strong. However, if her secrets were revealed, Nora feels her life would be destroyed, highlighting The Pain of Family Secrets and Estrangement.

“‘You give moral advice, Nora.’ Bob shook his head. ‘This is going to be a hell of a scandal. Jesus, we’ve been promoting you as a modern version of Mother Teresa. Now it turns out you’re Debbie Does Dallas.’”

Nora has cultivated the public persona of the ideal mother and wise confidant. Her employer feels that her nude photos shatter that image, revealing The Consequences of Fame and Maintaining Appearances. Notably, the photos only made it into the public sphere because of Nora’s fame, implying that celebrities are not afforded the same privacy as non-celebrities. The above quote also depicts misogyny, and how women are often seen as existing in a binary—as “Mother Teresa” or “Debbie Does Dallas.”

“Her mother had once had to make a choice like this. She could have chosen her husband and her daughters…or her career. Without a backward glance, Nora Bridge had chosen herself.”

Throughout her life, Ruby has believed that Nora left the family to pursue her career and gain fame and fortune. Ruby uses this excuse to justify writing a brutal article on her mother, and, in the process, reveals that she is more like Nora than she’d like to admit.