Golden Girl
8.3 / 10 190K ratings
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021
- Publisher
- Little Brown and Company
- Pages
- 384
- ISBN
- 9780316420082
-
Written at the height of the French Revolution by one of its own firebrands, this is not the story of Socrates you know. Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois reimagines the philosopher's final days as a gripping political drama and a tale of personal virtue. In this version of events, Socrates stands accused not only by the Athenian state but as a symbolic defender of the people's cause against a corrupt regime. The familiar charges of impiety and corrupting the youth are leveled, but the trial becomes a stage for the revolutionary ideals of 1791, transforming the ancient philosopher into a contemporary hero.
This play moves beyond a simple historical retelling by weaving the public trial with a sentimental and emotional core. The narrative explores the conflict between state power and individual conscience, but its true innovation lies in a startling departure from the historical record: an intervention by the common people. This alteration creates a powerful statement about popular sovereignty and justice. The work serves as both a philosophical inquiry and a piece of revolutionary art, questioning the nature of truth and law in a society grappling with its own identity.
Written at the height of the French Revolution by one of its own firebrands, this is not the story of Socrates you know. Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois reimagines the philosopher's final days as a gripping political drama and a tale of personal virtue. In this version of events, Socrates stands accused not only by the Athenian state but as a symbolic defender of the people's cause against a corrupt regime. The familiar charges of impiety and corrupting the youth are leveled, but the trial becomes a stage for the revolutionary ideals of 1791, transforming the ancient philosopher into a contemporary hero.
This play moves beyond a simple historical retelling by weaving the public trial with a sentimental and emotional core. The narrative explores the conflict between state power and individual conscience, but its true innovation lies in a startling departure from the historical record: an intervention by the common people. This alteration creates a powerful statement about popular sovereignty and justice. The work serves as both a philosophical inquiry and a piece of revolutionary art, questioning the nature of truth and law in a society grappling with its own identity.
Other editions (14)
Listen to the summary Narrated summary
On a perfect June morning, Nantucket breathes. The sun glints off the gold cupola of the Unitarian church, the scent of fresh doughnuts drifts from the Downyflake, and the first ferries slice through the harbor's calm water. Down a quiet dirt road fragrant with blooming lilacs, Vivian Howe begins her daily run. She is a novelist, and this island is her muse, the pristine blank page of summer her specialty. But today, her mind is a storm of maternal worry. Her eldest, Willa, is pregnant again after three devastating miscarriages. Her youngest, Leo, is a mystery wrapped in the quietude of his eighteenth year. And Carson, her beautiful, troubled middle child, stumbled home at dawn reeking of marijuana after a night of recklessness that left a pan smoldering on the stove. Vivi jogs, trying to outrun the anxiety, the music in her ears a balm. A song she hasn't heard in years begins to play, a ghost from her high-school past. She closes her eyes, singing along, lost in the memory. In that single, unguarded moment, tragedy strikes.
Vivi rises, a disembodied soul floating above the scene of her own death. She is not alone. A woman in a flowing white muumuu and an expertly knotted Hermès scarf introduces herself as Martha, her guide to the Beyond. There has been a mistake, Vivi insists, but Martha consults her clipboard with a gentle finality. “You're dead,” she says. Because the end was so sudden, so random, Martha grants her a gift: a seventy-five-day viewing window, lasting until Labor Day, and three nudges to influence events on Earth. From a boho-chic greenroom furnished with details scoured from her own Instagram, Vivi can now watch what she has left behind. She is a ghost, a spectator to the most painful show on earth: the lives of her children carrying on without her.
Down at Money Pit, her beloved, perpetually unfinished house, her children cling to one another on the turquoise sofa. Willa, the responsible one, is already making lists, trying to manage the unmanageable. Carson is gutted by guilt over their final argument, desperate to know if her mother read her last text. “I love you,” it said. Leo, her sweet baby boy, is a silent, sodden heap of grief. Their pain is a physical force that Vivi can feel even from the heavens, a raw, urgent agony she is powerless to soothe. She watches as their father, JP, her ex-husband, arrives, his own heart shattered. Ten years have passed since his affair with a younger woman named Amy broke their family apart, but in this moment of shared loss, the years fall away, leaving only the complicated ghost of the love they once shared.
On an island where secrets are a currency, Chief of Police Ed Kapenash begins his investigation. The first person he questions is Cruz DeSantis, Leo's best friend and the boy who found Vivi's body. Cruz, a brilliant and beloved kid on his way to Dartmouth, is like a fourth child to Vivi. But his story has holes. An officer saw his white Jeep speeding away from a different part of the island just minutes before the 911 call. Cruz claims he was coming from his own house, a clear lie. He is hiding something about a fight he had with Leo the night before, a secret wrapped inside the larger tragedy, and soon, the whispers begin to snake through the tight-knit community. The local golden girl was killed in a hit-and-run, and the prime suspect is the boy she called her favorite child.
From her celestial viewing room, Vivi watches the ripples of her death spread. She sees Amy, JP's girlfriend, navigate the awkward space of mourning the woman she replaced, her jealousy now curdled into a confusing guilt. She watches her fiercely loyal best friend, Savannah, step in to manage the unspooling chaos of funeral arrangements and publishing deadlines. And she sees a message appear on her memorial Facebook page from a man named Brett Caspian, a name no one has heard her speak in over thirty years. He claims to have been her high-school boyfriend, the inspiration for her final, forthcoming novel, *Golden Girl*. He wants to talk to her family, to share his memories. He has no idea he is about to unearth a secret Vivi had sworn to take to her grave.
The summer deepens, heavy with heat and unspoken truths. From her vantage point, Vivi sees what she never could in life: her daughter Carson, wrapped in a secret and dangerous affair with her own sister's brother-in-law, Zach Bridgeman. She sees the affair's near-discovery and, in a panic, uses her first nudge, a ghostly intervention that saves Carson from ruin by a hair's breadth. She watches Willa meet with Brett Caspian, who arrives on the ferry with a guitar and a packet of old photographs. He plays Willa the song he wrote for Vivi all those years ago, and then tells her the story behind the story - a teenage pregnancy, a heartbreaking choice, and a lie that changed the course of his life and haunted Vivi's.
As the weeks wear on, the investigation stalls. The key evidence, Vivi's running clothes, has vanished. Then, her bloody sneakers mysteriously appear in the trash at the Stop & Shop, where Cruz works, a clear attempt to frame him. But the Chief, unconvinced, follows a different thread - a thread that leads back to the bonfire on the beach the night before Vivi died. He learns of a photograph, a moment of startling intimacy between Leo and Cruz, captured by an antagonist and sent as a weapon. It was this photograph that set everything in motion.
The truth, when it finally breaks, is both mundane and devastating. It wasn't a malicious stranger or a hardened criminal who hit Vivi. It was Marissa Lopresti, Leo's girlfriend, who, in a moment of distraction while turning onto Kingsley Road, glanced at the shocking photo on her phone. In a panic, she fled, hid her crime, and allowed suspicion to fall on an innocent boy. It was an accident born of carelessness, a tragedy spun from the everyday sin of a driver looking at her phone.
On the Friday of Labor Day weekend, a small group gathers to bury Vivian Howe. Her children stand together, their grief now a shared landscape rather than a solitary island. Willa's hand rests on her belly, protecting the grandson Vivi will never meet. Carson holds the hand of a kind new boyfriend, a quiet promise of a healthier future. Leo stands with Cruz, their friendship mended and stronger than before. JP and Savannah stand side-by-side, a new, tentative bond forming between them in the space Vivi left behind.
From her greenroom in the Beyond, Vivi watches them. The summer is over. Her viewing window is closing. There are still so many things left unresolved, so many chapters unwritten. But as she sees her children finding their way, supporting one another, and beginning to heal, she understands. She has given them everything they need. Her work is done. With a final, loving look, she turns toward the sound of a distant choir, ready for whatever comes next, knowing that in the midst of winter, she had found within her, and left within them, an invincible summer.
Vivi rises, a disembodied soul floating above the scene of her own death. She is not alone. A woman in a flowing white muumuu and an expertly knotted Hermès scarf introduces herself as Martha, her guide to the Beyond. There has been a mistake, Vivi insists, but Martha consults her clipboard with a gentle finality. “You're dead,” she says. Because the end was so sudden, so random, Martha grants her a gift: a seventy-five-day viewing window, lasting until Labor Day, and three nudges to influence events on Earth. From a boho-chic greenroom furnished with details scoured from her own Instagram, Vivi can now watch what she has left behind. She is a ghost, a spectator to the most painful show on earth: the lives of her children carrying on without her.
Down at Money Pit, her beloved, perpetually unfinished house, her children cling to one another on the turquoise sofa. Willa, the responsible one, is already making lists, trying to manage the unmanageable. Carson is gutted by guilt over their final argument, desperate to know if her mother read her last text. “I love you,” it said. Leo, her sweet baby boy, is a silent, sodden heap of grief. Their pain is a physical force that Vivi can feel even from the heavens, a raw, urgent agony she is powerless to soothe. She watches as their father, JP, her ex-husband, arrives, his own heart shattered. Ten years have passed since his affair with a younger woman named Amy broke their family apart, but in this moment of shared loss, the years fall away, leaving only the complicated ghost of the love they once shared.
On an island where secrets are a currency, Chief of Police Ed Kapenash begins his investigation. The first person he questions is Cruz DeSantis, Leo's best friend and the boy who found Vivi's body. Cruz, a brilliant and beloved kid on his way to Dartmouth, is like a fourth child to Vivi. But his story has holes. An officer saw his white Jeep speeding away from a different part of the island just minutes before the 911 call. Cruz claims he was coming from his own house, a clear lie. He is hiding something about a fight he had with Leo the night before, a secret wrapped inside the larger tragedy, and soon, the whispers begin to snake through the tight-knit community. The local golden girl was killed in a hit-and-run, and the prime suspect is the boy she called her favorite child.
From her celestial viewing room, Vivi watches the ripples of her death spread. She sees Amy, JP's girlfriend, navigate the awkward space of mourning the woman she replaced, her jealousy now curdled into a confusing guilt. She watches her fiercely loyal best friend, Savannah, step in to manage the unspooling chaos of funeral arrangements and publishing deadlines. And she sees a message appear on her memorial Facebook page from a man named Brett Caspian, a name no one has heard her speak in over thirty years. He claims to have been her high-school boyfriend, the inspiration for her final, forthcoming novel, *Golden Girl*. He wants to talk to her family, to share his memories. He has no idea he is about to unearth a secret Vivi had sworn to take to her grave.
The summer deepens, heavy with heat and unspoken truths. From her vantage point, Vivi sees what she never could in life: her daughter Carson, wrapped in a secret and dangerous affair with her own sister's brother-in-law, Zach Bridgeman. She sees the affair's near-discovery and, in a panic, uses her first nudge, a ghostly intervention that saves Carson from ruin by a hair's breadth. She watches Willa meet with Brett Caspian, who arrives on the ferry with a guitar and a packet of old photographs. He plays Willa the song he wrote for Vivi all those years ago, and then tells her the story behind the story - a teenage pregnancy, a heartbreaking choice, and a lie that changed the course of his life and haunted Vivi's.
As the weeks wear on, the investigation stalls. The key evidence, Vivi's running clothes, has vanished. Then, her bloody sneakers mysteriously appear in the trash at the Stop & Shop, where Cruz works, a clear attempt to frame him. But the Chief, unconvinced, follows a different thread - a thread that leads back to the bonfire on the beach the night before Vivi died. He learns of a photograph, a moment of startling intimacy between Leo and Cruz, captured by an antagonist and sent as a weapon. It was this photograph that set everything in motion.
The truth, when it finally breaks, is both mundane and devastating. It wasn't a malicious stranger or a hardened criminal who hit Vivi. It was Marissa Lopresti, Leo's girlfriend, who, in a moment of distraction while turning onto Kingsley Road, glanced at the shocking photo on her phone. In a panic, she fled, hid her crime, and allowed suspicion to fall on an innocent boy. It was an accident born of carelessness, a tragedy spun from the everyday sin of a driver looking at her phone.
On the Friday of Labor Day weekend, a small group gathers to bury Vivian Howe. Her children stand together, their grief now a shared landscape rather than a solitary island. Willa's hand rests on her belly, protecting the grandson Vivi will never meet. Carson holds the hand of a kind new boyfriend, a quiet promise of a healthier future. Leo stands with Cruz, their friendship mended and stronger than before. JP and Savannah stand side-by-side, a new, tentative bond forming between them in the space Vivi left behind.
From her greenroom in the Beyond, Vivi watches them. The summer is over. Her viewing window is closing. There are still so many things left unresolved, so many chapters unwritten. But as she sees her children finding their way, supporting one another, and beginning to heal, she understands. She has given them everything they need. Her work is done. With a final, loving look, she turns toward the sound of a distant choir, ready for whatever comes next, knowing that in the midst of winter, she had found within her, and left within them, an invincible summer.
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