Bad Summer People

Jason is dark and intense. Some people find that quality attractive. Others, like Susan, see through him and consider him to be annoying at best. From the outset, Jason is the most corrupt of the major characters, but the others’ levels of corruption match his by the end of the summer. The author introduces the true nature of his character with the bald statement that he has always definitively hated his best friend. He envies everything that Sam has—money, good looks, women, and social ease.

Jason’s infatuation with Jen is arguably pitiable, for he mistakenly believes that they will eventually leave their respective marriages and start a life together. However, Jen is merely using him. His infatuation has little to do with Jen and everything to do with his jealousy of Sam. By taking the woman that Sam loves, he feels that he is finally dragging Sam down to his level. In the end, Jason at least tries to redeem himself by lying to Sam and claiming that the affair was about Jen and not him. Jason receives his punishment when Jen and Sam set him up to take the fall for Susan’s death, and Sam effectively rubs his nose in it by defending him. The author never confirms whether Jason feels rewarded or punished by his eventual ability to return to his shallow life and superficial marriage.

Like all the other characters, Rachel’s behavior devolves as the story progresses. She embodies the lack of moral judgment in the story, for far from disapproving or being disgusted by Jason and Jen’s betrayal of their spouses, she is thrilled by the prospect of the summer chaos that will ensue. In essence, Rachel is needy and insecure. Ironically, her craving for love and attention is the very thing that makes people avoid her, especially men, and her romantic relationships never last. Even her friendship with Lauren is something that she imposed on Lauren. Rachel’s attachment to Lauren is opportunistic at best, for she knows that Lauren is the acknowledged queen of Salcombe society wants to bask in her shadow.

Rachel’s need for approval and acknowledgment is expressed in her competitiveness in the tennis tournament. When she loses to Lauren and Jen, her jealousy leads her to expose Jason and Jen’s affair. This revelation destroys her friend circle and banishes her to the realm of the “B-listers” of Salcombe society. However, Rachel’s neediness does potentially evoke some sympathy, for it is her loneliness that ultimately leads to her downfall.

Robert’s character is summed up in the statement that although he loved Julie, he loved her money more. Robert always had a weakness for wealth and luxury. His one redeeming trait is that he has enough pride not to accept handouts. For most of his life, his skill as a tennis player forms the basis for his sense of self-worth. As long as he has that, he does not have to take charity from anyone.

At the start of the novel, Robert has been corrupted by greed and envy. He has been earning more in a single summer than 90% of people earn in a year, but he risks it all by embezzling from the Salcombe tennis club. By the end of the summer, he is one of the “bad, bad people” he despises, even if he never learns to recognize that fact. Of all the characters, he may arguably be the worst, for he is the one who kills Susan with premeditation.

Sam has always been a charming golden boy. He goes out of his way to ingratiate himself, but he is also genuine and loyal. All the same, his behavior devolves like that of all the other characters. He is initially naïve, trusting his best friend and his wife and assuming that they are as decent as he tries to be. Even when their affair is revealed, he never fully understands the depths of Jason’s resentment for him.

Sam is broken by Jason and Jen’s betrayal. He falls the farthest and fastest. He had sufficient virtue to begin with that his moral deterioration takes on an almost tragic cast, unlike that of the other characters, who were all thoroughly compromised already. Ultimately, he participates in the cover-up of the group’s involvement in Susan’s death, and he initially goes along with the idea of framing of Jason. He partially redeems himself by pursuing the truth about Susan’s death and by defending Jason in court after engineering his friend’s arrest, but as long as he never reveals the truth surrounding Susan’s death, his moral character can never be fully restored.

Everyone who knows Jen thinks that she is kind and loving. They don’t see the selfishness under the façade and never realize that Jen cares much less than it appears. When her affair with Jason is revealed, she appears as needy as Rachel, in her own way, for she craves the thrill of her serial affairs as much as Rachel craves the thrill of manipulative gossip. Jen also shares Rachel’s need for attention from men, but Jen maintains control over her affairs whereas Rachel is perpetually dumped whenever her lovers tire of her neediness.

Jen compartmentalizes her relationships, believing that her affairs are her own business and have nothing to do with Sam. Even after Sam discovers her affair with Jason, Jen never considers giving up her affairs. Her only redeeming quality is her pleasure in growing closer to Lauren. Jen’s behavior falls to its lowest point when she masterminds the scheme to frame Jason for Susan’s death.

Micah almost reaches the point of redemption. Like Susan, he learns things about his neighbors by accident and keeps them to himself, even when he shouldn’t. Whereas Rachel reveals her secrets in order to create chaos, Micah keeps them in order to maintain order. He has the uncomfortable feeling at the end of the novel that he made the wrong decision by choosing not to reveal that Robert was the last person to see Susan on the night of the storm. He also declines to share the fact that Robert was embezzling from the tennis club.

Rather than doing the morally righteous thing, Micah chooses to conceal the truth in order to preserve the cohesion of the community, if not its integrity. He hopes to compensate for this decision by doing good deeds in the world later. His final thought—that he is young and has plenty of time—is also ambiguous. He has time to follow through on his decision, but he also has the time to forget these recent events and continue in the rut laid down by his parents and grandparents before him.