39 pages • 1 hour read
Casey McQuistonRed, White, and Royal Blue
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Alex and Henry spend some time together in Paris. The paparazzi snap photos of them in an outdoor bistro, causing the public to conclude that they’re the best of friends. Even the normally suspicious Zahra compliments Alex for faking a friendship to generate good press. In March, when Henry turns twenty-three, and Alex turns twenty-two, they manage to share a clandestine celebration in New York.
During one of their late-night phone conversations, Henry begins to tell Alex about his sister Bea’s cocaine addiction. He then goes on to describe the dysfunction of the rest of his family. After his father’s sudden death from cancer, his mother sank into a depression that never lifted. His brother carries on in the royal tradition, and his grandmother tells Henry to bottle up his grief and deviant urges to preserve the Crown’s image. Alex is appalled by this advice. McQuiston writes: “Alex’s stomach turns over. He pictures Henry, a teenager, back-broken with grief and told to keep it and the rest of him shut up tight” (170).
Back at campaign headquarters, Alex has been keeping a folder he calls the Texas File. He has a hunch that there might be a way to win Texas voters back to a Democrat candidate, but he still isn’t sure how. While he’s toying with the notion late that evening, he gets an angry call from June. He’s forgotten to meet her for dinner. Rushing back to the White House, Alex finds his sister in her room. She’s still angry, mainly because Alex never confided in her about Henry. June observes, “You have so much in you, it’s almost impossible to match it. But he’s your match, dumbass” (178).
The circle of people who know about Henry and Alex has expanded. On the U.S. side, there’s Nora, June, and the Secret Service agents, Amy and Cash. On Henry’s side, the list includes sister Bea, best friend Pez, and equerry Shaan. An upcoming fundraiser in L.A. brings everyone except Shaan together for the evening. After the official event, Pez takes them all to a seedy karaoke bar where they all get drunk and sing badly. Later at the hotel, Henry and Alex spend the night together and release all their pent-up sexual energy after being separated for so long. The next morning the hungover group gathers in the hotel hallway as Alex notes:
Cash chuckles under his breath when he meets them at the elevators, a tray of six coffees balanced on one hand. Hangover tending isn’t part of his job description, but he’s a mother hen. ‘So this is the gang now, huh?’ And through it all, Alex realizes with a start: He has friends now (201)
Chapter 8 Summary
The campaign for reelection begins in earnest when Utah senator, Jeffrey Richards, gets the Republican nomination. Alex thinks that his dad “wasn’t wrong about how ugly things would get with Richards leading the ticket. Utah ugly, Christian ugly, ugliness couched in dog whistles and toothy white smiles” (206).
During the summer, Alex receives an invitation to Wimbledon, where he sits in the Royal Box with Henry, Bea, and Henry’s elder brother Philip and sister-in-law Martha. After Philip makes a few barbed comments to Alex, Henry excuses himself. Alex follows, and the two manage a quick sexual escapade in the storage room in the basement of the clubhouse. They then retire to Henry’s quarters at Kensington Palace, where they spend the afternoon together as Alex listens to Henry play the piano. He silently tries to deny that he’s falling in love.
Alex returns to America to attend the Democratic National Convention is in New York when he receives some upsetting news. His friend and political mentor, Rafael, has agreed to endorse Richards for president and stump for his campaign. Henry happens to be in New York when the announcement is made, and he rushes to Alex’s hotel to console him. Alex confides that Rafael was his political role model. He feels betrayed and wonders if anyone goes into public service intending to do the people any good. He tells Henry, “And now I’m sitting here thinking, that son of a bitch sold out, so maybe it’s all bullshit, and maybe I really am just a naive kid who believes in magical shit that doesn’t happen in real life” (229).
Henry reassures Alex that he is a good person who will make a difference in the world someday. The two men spend the night together, and both oversleep the following morning. Zahra barges into Alex’s hotel room and discovers Henry there. She’s shocked to learn their affair has been going on for seven months. She warns Alex, “Listen, […] We don’t have time to deal with this, and your mother has enough to manage without having to process her son’s fucking quarter-life NATO sexual crisis, so—I won’t tell her. But once the convention is over, you have to” (233).
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
Alex and Henry’s relationship remains clandestine and both are playing the public roles expected of them. The situation is especially delicate for Alex because he’s assisting in his mother’s reelection campaign. Each man has confided the affair to a trusted circle, and the conspiracy ring has expanded. Henry has Bea, Pez, and Shaan on his side. Alex has June, Nora, Cash, and Amy. By the end of the segment, Zahra is also in on the secret.
The pressure to keep the relationship under wraps intensifies as photojournalists cover every move that Alex and Henry make. Though it becomes obvious to the reader that this situation can’t continue, the two principal participants congratulate themselves on pulling the wool over the press’s eyes. Every published photo shows them as the best of friends.
To a lesser extent, the theme of public and private is demonstrated in Rafael’s betrayal of the Claremont campaign. He appears to have gone over to the dark side. The reader won’t learn until many chapters later that the split between Rafael’s public actions and private motivations is almost as great as the one demonstrated by Alex and Henry.
The motif of private communication expands once again in this segment when Henry tells Alex by email and phone about the dysfunctional nature of his own family. This gives Alex a greater insight into the shattered man behind the perfect façade, but it will also offer more fodder for public humiliation of the royal family when all these facts are revealed. While Alex has honored his private identity by acknowledging it, he’s far from ready to allow those feelings to become the subject of public debate.
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By Casey McQuiston
