Same Time Next Summer

The opening chapters of Part 1 introduce the narrative world, its primary characters, conflicts, stakes, and thematic explorations. These chapters also establish the formal and structural rules of the novel. The chapters set in the narrative present are written from the protagonist Sam’s first-person point of view, while the chapters set in the past are written from the third-person point of view. In the present, Annabel Monaghan imbues Sam with narrative authority over her version of events. This formal technique reflects Sam’s desperation to replace her “impulsiveness with deliberate decisions and plans” (4). She wants to be in control of her life as much as she wants to be in control of her story and how it plays out. By contrast, in the third-person sections of this excerpt, the narrator alternates between Sam’s and Wyatt’s perspectives. In the chapters titled “Wyatt,” the narrator depicts Wyatt and Sam’s summers according to Wyatt’s childhood vantage point, while she depicts these same summers according to Sam’s childhood perspective in the chapters titled “Sam.” These point-of-view choices evidence the freedom and ease of Sam and Wyatt’s past together and the ways in which Sam was able to embrace the unexpected in Wyatt’s company. Meanwhile, the temporal interplay between the past and present introduces the novel’s thematic exploration of The Challenge of Navigating Past and Present Relationships.

Sam’s decision to spend a week with her family on Long Island acts as the novel’s inciting event. She hasn’t “spent a whole summer at the beach” since she and Wyatt broke up over a decade prior (4). Therefore, returning to this setting tugs Sam back into the past. Ever since her and Wyatt’s breakup, Sam has tried to leave her childhood behind. She therefore feels anxious at the prospect of “stay[ing] at the beach for too long,” because she knows her “old self is there” and fears that it “wants to drag [Sam] out through the rusty chinks in [her] armor” (4). The metaphor of Sam’s armor captures how curated and controlled she’s become in her adult life and how afraid she is of being touched, softened, or freed from this carefully constructed facade she’s created for herself. However, Monaghan positions the Long Island backdrop as a portal back to Sam’s liberated, youthful self. Throughout these chapters, Sam finds herself drifting into remembrance while staring at the ocean or moving through town. This natural environment awakens Sam’s sense memories and compels her to engage with her surroundings and her emotions instead of self-protectively ignoring them, highlighting the novel’s thematic interest in Journeys of Self-Discovery and Personal Growth.

The narrative employs figurative and descriptive language in order to capture Sam’s relationship with the Long Island setting and its impact on her emotional and psychological state. For example, when she’s looking out over the beach during cocktail hour, she describes the ocean view as follows:

I take in the welcome beauty of the Atlantic Ocean. Just beyond the porch, the thick run of dunes leads to a stretch of beach that leads to the shore. The sun is low and casts speckled light on the water. The gulls soar and dive as the waves roll in, one after another, reaching out and pulling back in an infinite loop. The endlessness of it all overwhelms me. I feel like the ocean should have stopped and changed when I did (13).

In this passage, Sam’s use of vocabulary like “casts,” “speckled,” “soar,” “roll,” “infinite,” “endlessness,” and “overwhelms” emphasizes the power this beachside setting has on her heart and mind. She’s not only immersed in the sounds, smells, and sights around her; this sensory immersion compels her into deep reflection. Monaghan suggests that the Long Island setting is lodged in Sam’s heart and an integral part of who she is. Throughout her visit, Sam will have to reconcile this innate version of herself with the version of herself she’s carefully constructed and presented to her fiancé.

The reveal of Wyatt’s presence on Long Island adds another layer of narrative tension as the plot builds toward Sam and Wyatt’s adult reunion. Although Sam hasn’t seen him since she was 16, as soon as she learns that he’s staying next door and hears him playing guitar, she becomes nostalgic. The oceanic setting combined with Wyatt’s presence in Oak Shore foreshadows Sam’s coming struggle to navigate her past and present relationships and to process what really happened between her and Wyatt years prior, underscoring The Enduring Impact of First Love as a central theme of the novel.