44 pages • 1 hour read
Adrienne YoungThe Unmaking of June Farrow
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A 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 17-23Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary
Caleb asks June to come back to the station for a conversation. She notices his last name is Rutherford, meaning he is related to Nathaniel and, therefore, to her.
Chapter 18 Summary
In the station, Caleb questions June. He plays a recording of her speaking. What she says in the recording diverges from what she says in response to his question about whether or not she, Eamon, and Annie left the Midsummer Faire together the night Nathaniel was murdered. Caleb tells her that Mimi Granger, who isn’t usually trusted because of alcohol use, witnessed June running with one shoe, covered in blood, and insinuates that they suspect Eamon of Nathaniel’s murder. Eamon arrives and escorts her home, revealing that Caleb is June’s brother.
Chapter 19 Summary
When they arrive back at the farmhouse, June asks Eamon and Esther for more details. They tell her that Nathaniel had a darkness in him. He thought Susanna was unnatural and demonic, though he couldn’t resist her. When Susanna became pregnant with June, Nathaniel asked Esther to poison her so that she’d lose the baby, and Esther convinced Susanna to go through the door. Susanna returned to Nathaniel before June was born but became concerned that Nathaniel would hurt the baby. Having already used her three passages through the door, Esther took June through it for Susanna. Nathaniel was informed that June died before he and Susanna conceived another baby, Caleb.
Eamon and Esther also tell June that when she’d been back in 1946, Nathaniel seemed to know who she was and had been following her. Eamon had words with him about it, which is why Caleb suspects his involvement in his father’s murder.
Chapter 20 Summary
While June knows Eamon isn’t telling her the whole truth, they become more at ease around each other, and June suggests they go to the Faire that evening. June realizes memories of her life in 2023 are fading. She wonders if she sent herself back through the door with the “Trust me” note.
Chapter 21 Summary
June and Eamon attend the Faire. They dance together before he eventually tells her it’s too hard and pulls away. Caleb confronts June, telling her he knows she’s lying and will prove it. She sees “the remnants of his father, [their] father” in his “crazed look” (228). She sees Mimi Granger, who looks terrified at the sight of her.
Chapter 22 Summary
June decides she needs to learn what happened the night of Nathaniel’s murder if the others won’t tell her and visits Mimi Granger. Mimi tells her that she was running from the river, carrying the child, covered in blood, and looking like she was sleepwalking. June knows the woman is telling the truth. As she leaves, June remembers another intimate moment with Mason. She realizes that these “memories with Mason [are] what happened to the June who didn’t go through the door until months after Gran’s funeral” (239). She wonders what will happen if she goes back to 2023.
Chapter 23 Summary
June decides to visit Esther. She asks if Esther thinks Susanna really died by suicide. Esther tells her she is suspicious of the fact that they never found the body. She believes Nathaniel killed her and that Eamon was also capable of murder if it was to protect June and Annie from Nathaniel.
At the farmhouse, Annie cries at night. Eamon is too deep in sleep to go comfort her, as he has done every night since June arrived. June climbs into bed with Annie, and Eamon eventually joins them.
Chapters 17-23 Analysis
This section of the novel develops Eamon as he begins to grow closer to June and admits to being broken by her departure. June and the reader are both unaware that Eamon did not kill Nathaniel. Rather, these chapters increase suspicion that Eamon is Nathaniel’s murderer. His love for June becomes increasingly apparent, suggesting that he would do anything to protect her. The novel explores how Nathaniel was stalking June, providing more support for Eamon being the killer. Because the novel is told from June’s perspective, the reader only has information that’s available to June. This renders Eamon’s actions suspicious while evoking sympathy for June’s conflicting feelings about her relationship with him.
This section explores The Connection Between Memory and Identity. June’s memories of her life in the 2023 timeline are fading. For example, on her trip into Jasper, June thinks, “There was a small produce shop front in what was now…I couldn’t remember” (174). The ellipsis emphasizes the pace of June’s thoughts and absence where there was once memory. Again, Young builds sympathy for June and creates a tone of uncanny disorientation. Another example of this is when June forgets her next-door neighbor’s name. The reader knows that June is referring to Ida, which amplifies June’s confusion: “The neighbor. I could see her face, her dark hair pulled back in a clip and painted fingernails. But I couldn’t dredge her name up from my mind. It was just barely out of reach” (211). This is a unique form of dramatic irony. With dramatic irony, the reader knows something that the character does not. In this case, the reader knows something the character used to know but has forgotten. The passage includes physical details and refers to memory in relation to water. This suggests that memory is simultaneously vivid and slippery.
During this section of the novel, intimacy increases between June and Eamon and recalls June’s earlier thoughts on marriage and family: “He handed me a bowl without looking in my direction, but instead of an attempt to avoid me, it appeared to be more a movement that was done by memory. It felt like a lived-in thing” (207). The use of “lived-in” echoes how, earlier in the novel, June meditates on how she will never experience a “lived-in” kind of love. The narrative characterizes June and Eamon’s relationship as magnetic but does not explain why June changes her mind and forms a relationship with him.
As the novel builds toward a climax, Young introduces the importance of June’s impending choice: Should she or shouldn’t she go back through the door? Initially, June feels this is an inevitability. She begins to think about the decision in a self-aware manner: “I didn’t know how to just pick up my life again and go on like my entire world hadn’t changed. I didn’t know how to come back from this” (182). The repetition of “I didn’t know” reflects June’s confusion and emphasizes her central conflict: She still doesn’t have all the information about who she was (or is) and why she made her choices, information that will inform her decision when she next sees the door.
June is driven to discover the truth about her past actions. Like memory, Young personifies truth, giving it human qualities and agency: “[T]here was a sudden ease in the house, like an unclenched fist, and I wondered if it was because more of the truth had worked its way out between us” (207). The strength and agency associated with truth emphasize June’s lack of agency by contrast. June’s musings also contrast with more sinister facts, like the identity of Nathaniel’s murderer and June’s abandonment of her daughter. Instead, it indicates the possibility of a repaired relationship between June and Eamon.
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By Adrienne Young
