Family

The narrator’s dysfunctional relationship with her biological family when she grew up influences her behavior as an adult as she tries to create a surrogate family in New York. The narrator’s difficult family background is first introduced in Chapter 5 of Summer when, during her first drunken night out at Park Bar, she reflects on an incident from her childhood when her father did not celebrate her birthday and she dearly wished for her absent mother to be there instead. The narrator chooses not to share this memory with any of her colleagues at the restaurant, so it is only the reader who is aware of how sensitive a topic birthdays are for the narrator. When Jake and Simone buy Tess a birthday cake in the first chapter of Spring, the reader is, therefore, acutely aware of how important and symbolic this gesture appears to...