51 pages • 1 hour read
Taylor Jenkins ReidForever, Interrupted: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 1-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “June”
Nine days after Elsie Porter and Ben Ross get married, the couple hangs out at their apartment in Los Angeles, California. They discuss whether or not Elsie will change her name, and she suggests combining their last names and going by Elsie Porter Ross. Suddenly, Elsie gets a craving for Fruity Pebbles cereal. Ben insists on taking his bike to CVS to pick up a box.
Thirty minutes later, Ben still hasn’t returned home, and Elsie starts to worry. He isn’t picking up his phone either. Then she hears sirens and races outside to find “two ambulances and a fire truck” in the street (5). Fruity Pebbles are lying all over the ground. A police officer informs her that a moving truck hit Ben, and both he and the driver died in the accident. The officer drives her to the hospital.
At the hospital, Elsie still can’t make sense of what happened. She tries going into the room to see Ben, momentarily convinced he’s alive. The officer informs her that he was an organ donor, and the doctors are working on him. Finally, her best friend from college, Ana Romano, arrives and gets into an altercation with a nurse, demanding that they let Elsie see Ben. The nurse informs them that the hospital has called Ben’s mother because she’s his next of kin. The women argue that Elsie is next of kin because they’re married, but no one listens. Elsie sits numbly in the waiting room, blaming herself for sending Ben out to the store.
Ben’s mom, Susan Ross, arrives. Elsie retreats to the bathroom because she has never met Susan and doesn’t know what to say to her. Afterward, the doctors let Elsie and Susan in to see Ben. Susan watches as Elsie throws herself on his body and calls security, but Elsie tells her who she is. Susan collapses on the floor in tears.
The hospital attendants give Susan Ben’s wallet, phone, and keys. Elsie is upset, and an argument ensues. Susan doesn’t believe Elsie is who she says she is because she’s never heard of her before. Elsie finally gives in, lets her have Ben’s things, and storms out. Ana follows her outside, helps her into the car, and drives her home. She settles Elsie for the night, giving her one of the Vicodin that Ben was prescribed after a back injury.
The next morning, Elsie reaches over for Ben when she wakes up. Then she remembers what happened. Ana checks on her, offering to get her food while she’s out walking her dog, but Elsie declines. She gets up after Ana leaves and collapses onto the floor when she sees the Georgie’s Pizza magnet on the fridge.
Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “December”
The narrative flashes back six months, establishing a pattern of skipping between the past and present.
Elsie and Ana attend a New Year’s Eve party together. Ana gets drunk and ends up making out with someone from her gym named Jim. At two o’clock in the morning, Elsie calls Ana a cab and returns to her own apartment. She wakes up alone as usual and spends the morning reading before Ana comes over. They go out for breakfast and discuss their New Year’s resolutions. Ana wants to be celibate because she doesn’t like that she keeps drinking and sleeping with men she can’t remember. Elsie doesn’t have the same habit as she’s waiting to fall in love with the perfect guy.
Elsie spends the rest of Saturday night watching television on her couch. Then she orders pizza and walks down to Georgie’s to pick it up. She and a handsome stranger named Ben start chatting, and he asks for her number before leaving. Elsie obliges, feeling giddy.
Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “June”
Elsie considers destroying the Georgie’s magnet but leaves it on the fridge. She calls Susan, and they make plans to meet at the hotel bar where Susan is staying to discuss funeral arrangements. Afterward, Elsie returns to bed and cries.
Ana drops off Elsie at the hotel. Elsie and Susan discuss the situation, and Susan argues that because she’s Ben’s only family, she should be in charge of the funeral. When Elsie pushes back, Susan gives in, realizing that Ben didn’t want her “involved in his life” anyway (41). However, another argument ensues when Susan says he will be cremated because Elsie knows he wanted to be buried.
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “January”
Elsie and Ben make plans to have lunch the day after they meet. Elsie gets ready to meet him but locks her keys and phone in her apartment. She’s trying to break into her place when Ben arrives. He insists on helping and crawls in through the doggie door. Inside, he compliments her space, impressed that she makes such good money as a librarian. They grab Elsie’s things and head out on their date.
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary: “June”
Every time Elsie wakes up, she remembers what happened to Ben all over again. One day, she finds Ana in the kitchen, eager to help Elsie in any way she can. She encourages her to eat and asks if she needs help communicating with the funeral home. Later, she gives Elsie a ride, and Elsie is glad she’s there.
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary: “January”
On their date, Ben tells Elsie they’re taking a little adventure to get to the restaurant where he wants to go. The drive will take more than an hour. They talk about themselves, their families, and their pasts on the way. Elsie has lived in Los Angeles for nine years. She is an only child, both her parents are doctors, and they wanted her to be a doctor, too. She tells Ben that her relationship with them changed when she told them she wanted to be a librarian instead. Ben is also an only child, but his dad recently died from cancer. He’s always been close with his mom but can’t imagine the grief she’s experienced losing her partner.
Ben and Elsie arrive at a dingy Mexican restaurant. They order tacos and horchata and continue their conversation. Before returning to the car, Ben kisses Elsie. She feels embarrassed when the restaurant guy sees them but doesn’t really mind. Meanwhile, Ana repeatedly calls Elsie. She hasn’t told her about Ben yet, and she doesn’t pick up.
They return to the car and drive to Scoops Gelato Shop, Elsie’s favorite gelato place. They get caught in traffic, and Ben speeds down the median so they make it to the shop on time. They arrive one minute after closing and Ben begs and bribes the server to give him two cups of gelato. Afterward, they return to Elsie’s place, where they drink champagne from New Year’s and try to continue their conversation. Then they kiss for several hours, then order Chinese food, chat, laugh, cuddle, kiss, and tease. Finally, Elsie responds to Ana’s texts, revealing some of what’s going on and promising to fill her in soon. Elsie invites Ben to spend the night but says she won’t have sex with him. They’re intimate in bed but don’t have sex.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary: “June”
Elsie and Ana meet with Mr. Richard Pavlik at the funeral home. They encounter some difficulties while trying to arrange the funeral because Elsie hasn’t shown him her marriage certificate, and Pavlik has no record of her marriage to Ben. The certificate still hasn’t come in the mail. She and Ana promise to bring the records soon. Afterward, Ana encourages Elsie to discuss the issue with Susan again.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “January”
Elsie replays her date and thinks about Ben throughout her shift at the Los Angeles Public Library the next day. Her elderly patron, Mr. George Callahan, asks Elsie for help, and they have a brief conversation before closing that surprises Elsie.
Elsie and Ana hang out at Ana’s house. Elsie tells her everything about Ben and their date. Then, Ana reveals that she went out with Jim and ended up sleeping with him after all. Elsie gets a call from Ben. He wants to meet up, and Elsie agrees to have dinner with him. She goes home to get ready, and Ben arrives shortly thereafter and drives her to Beachcomber, a restaurant with a fire pit near the water. Elsie is surprised when Ben admits that he bought a new shirt for their date.
The conversation turns to their relationship. They acknowledge how fast everything is moving but agree that they’re okay with it. They decide to keep the intensity of the relationship the same for the next five weeks. If their feelings fade by the end of the five weeks, they’ll break up. To make this work, they decide to have sex that night. They start asking one another questions about their lives, including about their past relationships.
After dinner, Elsie and Ben start kissing in Elsie’s driveway. The night is heated, and they have sex. Afterward, Elsie feels alive.
Part 1, Chapters 1-8 Analysis
Ben Ross’s untimely death acts as the novel’s inciting incident and therefore catalyzes all of the narrative tension, conflict, and action that follows. In Chapter 1, Ben dies when he goes out on an innocuous errand to the drugstore to buy cereal for his new wife, Elsie Porter. This event occurs in the early days of the couple’s new marriage and their intense romance. Therefore, Elsie is unable to orient to what has happened when she runs “to the end of [her] street” and discovers that her husband has been killed. The event disrupts Elsie’s otherwise idyllic new life with Ben and thrusts her into a world of grief, guilt, and pain that she doesn’t know how to navigate. With this, it also subverts genre expectations—most romance novels end with the couple getting their happily ever after, while this one begins with that happiness’s abrupt end. This indicates that Reid is using the romance genre to discuss other topics. The tragedy appearing at the forefront of the narrative establishes a tense atmosphere that mobilizes the plot and accelerates the narrative pacing. Furthermore, Ben’s unexpected death introduces the novel’s explorations of The Journey from Heartbreak to Healing, The Intensity of Brief and Sudden Romance, and The Process of Finding and Building New Relationships. Because the novel is written from Elsie’s first-person point of view, Forever, Interrupted is her story. Her response to her new husband’s death thus launches her emotional journey and complicates her ability to reconcile the hope she felt with Ben with the sorrow she feels without him.
After Elsie loses Ben, she struggles to engage with her life in the present. Her emotional journey in the narrative present is reflected structurally with consistent narrative flashbacks. For example, in Chapter 1, when Elsie encounters the “magnet for Georgie’s Pizza” on the front of her refrigerator the day after Ben dies, she “fall[s] to the floor, [her] cheek against the cold tile” (25). On the next page, the narrative shifts into scenes from Elsie’s recent past with the start of Chapter 2. The magnet is, therefore, a narrative device used to instigate this formal shift. Furthermore, the magnet is an emotional trigger for Elsie as it reminds her of what she has shared and lost with Ben. The pages that follow relay the details of how Elsie and Ben met roughly six months prior. This flashback adds background information about the couple’s relationship while developing the novel’s examinations of intense and brief romances. In these ways, Ben’s death inspires the narrative form. Losing Ben causes Elsie to feel estranged from reality, and the timeline shifts enact Elsie’s distinct grieving process.
Ben’s death augments Elsie’s loneliness and isolation. In Chapter 2, Elsie reveals her feelings about romantic relationships and her relationship status when she describes Ana’s dating habits. She knows that Ana has “all the power in her romances” but also believes that none of her trysts are ever “very full of passion” (27). Instead of modeling Ana’s sexual freedom, Elsie prefers to be on her own until she finds someone who is disinterested in playing games and will “sweep [her] off [her] feet” (27), aligning her with typical romance heroines. While waiting for the perfect match, Elsie spends most of her time by herself. She works at the public library and hangs out with Ana, but she often stays at home reading or watching television. Everything changes when Ben enters her life. She suddenly has the partner she has always dreamed of--the ideal person with whom she can share her life and who feels like a veritable companion. Elsie particularly values this dynamic because she is an only child and doesn’t have a relationship with her parents. Ben, therefore, becomes her family, and losing him so abruptly leaves her doubly alienated and estranged. She holes up in her apartment because she is shocked and grieving but also because she has nowhere to turn without him. Ana supports her during this time, but Elsie even struggles to engage in this relationship. Her state of mind throughout the first half of Part 1 is thus a manifestation of her grief and resulting sense of abandonment.
These chapters also introduce Susan as a major character in Elsie’s story. While she appears antagonistic in these early scenes—she largely appears to be an obstacle who delegitimizes Elsie and Ben’s relationship—she is also characterized as a woman who is dealing with losing her entire family. This parallel foreshadows her and Elsie’s future bond as they navigate grief together.
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By Taylor Jenkins Reid
