55 pages • 1 hour read
Fiona DavisThe Magnolia Palace
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A 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 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
It is 1919 and Lillian Carter is 21 years old, living in New York City, and making her living as an artists’ model under the pseudonym “Angelica.” The morning the book opens, her landlord has been arrested, and she hopes that he will go to jail so that she has extra time to earn the rent. Lillian’s mother, Kitty, died recently of the “Spanish flu” (now known as the 1918 flu pandemic), and Lillian is earning less money than she did when Kitty was in charge. The sculptor for whom she currently models is dissatisfied with the way her body has changed since her mother’s death. She has put on weight and no longer conforms to the classical ideal currently attractive to sculptors. She is also aging out of her career and has been having a difficult time finding work.
Prior to her mother’s death, Lillian, as Angelica, was a famous model for sculptors, and her likeness is now featured in sculptures all around New York City’s parks and other public spaces. She enjoys the collaborative aspect of her work and helping to create artwork that is accessible to the public. However, her current sculptor dismisses her, claiming that he needs to rethink the project. Lillian knows she has lost the job.
When she returns home, she is surprised to see that the police are still there, even after arresting Mr. Watkins that morning. As she walks by the Watkinses’ open apartment door, she sees a woman’s hand lying on the blood-soaked rug and knows that Mrs. Watkins is dead. In her own apartment, Lillian recalls the last time she negotiated her rent with Mr. Watkins. He offered to waive her rent if she would have sex with him; she responded with “a note to Mr. Watkins that was mildly flirtatious” (90), putting him off to buy extra time to gather the rent money. Lillian has recently received letters from a Hollywood producer and hopes to leave soon for California to begin an acting career, thereby negating the need to pay the rent.
The police knock on Lillian’s door. They found her note in the deceased Mrs. Watkins’s pocket, and the contents make it seem like Lillian was in a relationship with Mr. Watkins and conspired with him to murder his wife. When the officers want to take her to the station for further questioning, she excuses herself to use the bathroom. There, she climbs out the window and runs away, leaving all her possessions behind.
Chapter 2 Summary
The narrative jumps to its other storyline in 1966, where 18-year-old Veronica Weber is on her first big modeling job for Vogue magazine in New York City. She is visiting from London. Veronica’s defining feature, which led to her discovery by a model agent in Veronica’s uncle’s pawnshop, was her haircut, bobbed with blunt bangs. Her mother had given her the haircut rather than paying for one, but its awkward style suits Veronica.
When she arrives at the Frick Collection, where the shoot is located, the archivist, Joshua Lawrence, lets her in. She gets ready in one of the mansion’s bedrooms. She does her own makeup and hair, but she realizes when she sees the other models that she has done it wrong; she runs out of the room, fearing she ruined her big modeling opportunity with the bad makeup.
Chapter 3 Summary
Lillian’s mother, Kitty, worked in a factory when Lillian was young. She had come from an upper-class background and prioritized Lillian’s education, schooling her daughter in the arts: Lillian was given singing and dancing lessons, and by the time she was 14, she wanted a career on the stage. Kitty moved them to New York City, and Lillian got a job in the chorus of a Broadway show.
One night after a show, Lillian found a note in her dressing room, asking her to model for a respected sculptor. Her mother was reluctant, but Lillian persuaded her, arguing that it was a good stepping-stone to an acting career. When Kitty found out she would be posing nude, she nearly canceled the job. Lillian once again convinced her, however. Her career as a model began, and Kitty came up with her pseudonym, Angelica.
After Lillian escapes the police at her apartment, she falls asleep on a park bench. A police officer wakes her up, and she sees a newspaper nearby. Her escape is front-page news, and she is wanted for questioning about Mrs. Watkins’s murder. Luckily, the press is calling her “Angelica Carter,” and no one knows her true name. She walks Fifth Avenue, pausing to look at a sculpture of her likeness over the door of a mansion. A woman comes out of the mansion and brings Lillian inside through the servants’ entrance, assuming that Lillian is there for a job interview. Lillian decides to play along, rest, drink a cup of tea, and then leave.
Chapter 4 Summary
The woman takes Lillian through the house and leaves her in a magnificent room. Lillian realizes she is in the Frick mansion, the home of wealthy steel magnate Henry Clay Frick. Helen Clay Frick, Henry’s daughter, enters. She is interviewing candidates to be her private secretary, and she and Lillian discuss the extensive art collection in the room.
Helen admits that she is difficult to work for but offers $140 per month (equivalent to roughly $2,300 in 2022, the year of the novel’s publication). Lillian estimates that if she can keep the job for one month, she will earn enough money to get to California. In addition, the position offers room and board, an ideal way to hide from the police. She agrees to the position, only to find out that she will in fact be running the entire Frick household as well as managing Helen’s affairs.
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Because this is a historical novel with two timelines and two narratives, Davis orients the reader quickly to the beginning plots in 1919 and 1966 and introduces both protagonists, Lillian and Veronica. The 1919 timeline is the dominant narrative, with only about one third of the novel’s chapters set in 1966. Because of this, each of the 1966 chapters, beginning with Chapter 2, works hard to develop Victoria’s character and history, detail her story at the Frick Collection, and round out Joshua, the other key character in this narrative.
Additionally, because this novel features the real-life Frick Collection in New York City, Davis takes time to orient the reader in the setting. She offers basic historical information about the Frick Mansion and Collection through Joshua, a knowledgeable archivist. Likewise, when Lillian begins her job as Helen’s private secretary, both she and the reader receive a short tour of the Mansion with some basic information about the rooms, the art, and the feel of the building. By the end of these opening chapters, both Lillian and Veronica are firmly established as the main characters, and Davis has built the world for the reader.
The first chapters find Lillian in a difficult situation, though her adversity sets the stage for her eventual triumph. The novel opens with the young woman grieving for her mother, failing in her career, short on money, suspected of murder, and on the run. Much like Lillian became a muse to artists and sculptors beginning at age 15, her mother was her muse, guiding her both personally and professionally until her death. Capitalizing on Lillian’s devastation at Kitty’s death and her resulting vulnerability, Lillian’s landlord tried to bribe Lillian, offering rent forgiveness in exchange for sex. Because of her socially and financially vulnerable position and low self-esteem from a waning modeling career for which she was taught to be ashamed, Lillian does not refuse Mr. Watkins but puts him off with the flirtatious note—one that creates suspicion with the police. Her dire straits contrast dramatically with where she finds herself by the end of the novel, when she will be financially secure and respected for her modeling work. While a trope of “reversal of fortune” often plays out rapidly within a plot, this narrative draws out the process for the protagonist.
These early chapters initiate the running themes of The Conflict Between Shame and Passion and The Toll of Societal Double Standards. Although Lillian’s modeling career is both legitimate and a contribution to art by today’s standards, the 1919 milieu stigmatizes the profession and labels it as scandalous. Lillian feels caught between pride in her artistic contribution and the shame others foist upon her. A double standard exists because the same people who look down upon Lillian for nude modeling also esteem (and lavish money on) the resultant artwork. Additionally, while these people degrade Lillian, they praise the sculptors who hire and paint her.
Davis illustrates one source of this shame in Lillian’s interaction with the police. A young policeman says, “‘The other tenants mentioned that you’re Angelica.’ He glanced at Lillian’s chest and blushed” (10). Throughout the police interview, their disdain for Angelica and her “shameful” career is clear, and coupled with the note, it is obvious to both Lillian and the reader that they already consider her guilty.
Beginning the novel with Lillian under such immediate stress allows Davis to reveal her character’s intelligence, quick thinking under pressure, and adaptability. Lillian vividly demonstrates those qualities when, at the end of Chapter 1, she escapes through the bathroom window, taking her future into her own hands. Other details Davis sprinkles throughout these chapters further illustrate Lillian’s strength of character. Although she claims that Kitty was in charge of their lives, it was Lillian who pushed to move to New York and to begin modeling—a career that supported her and her mother. She is resourceful and chameleon-like enough to put off Mr. Watkins and buy herself more time to pay the rent. She even quickly decides on a plan and uses her adaptability to talk herself into Helen’s private secretary position. Lillian is able to hold her own in the discussion about art because of Kitty having been her muse and encouraging her education in the arts, and it is Lillian’s extensive knowledge of fine art that is the deciding factor in Helen hiring her. This specialized knowledge also reveals the depth of Lillian’s passion for art—a passion possessed by numerous characters.
By the end of these opening chapters, Davis has delved deeply into Lillian’s story. She has also introduced Veronica and begins to weave her story into Lillian’s. Davis emphasizes that the stakes of this trip are high for Veronica, who needs a successful modeling career to provide for her sister. Davis draws a parallel between Lillian, who began her career at 15 to support herself and Kitty, and Veronica, who is beginning her career at 18 to support her mother and sister.
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