Chapter 1 Summary

Milton Loftis and his wife Helen, along with their two daughters Maude and Peyton, live in Port Warwick, Virginia. The Loftises have not been happy in their marriage for quite some time now and their daughters are grown. Additionally, Milton's long-lasting affair with Dolly Bonner is a constant source of shame and irritation for Helen, who is a bitter, lonely woman who experiences a significant crisis in faith. During the course of the narrative, Maudie dies of natural causes associated with a congenital birth condition. After a short marriage to Harry Miller, Peyton, a sexually promiscuous alcoholic, commits suicide in New York City. Milton and Helen's life together has unraveled to the extent that, by the end of the novel, characters themselves and their more than thirty years together are left in a shambles.

The novel opens with the omniscient narrator describing a...