44 pages • 1 hour read
Such a Fun Age
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BetaPart 1: Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary
The day after the Market Depot incident, Alix takes both of her children on a jog through the city. She makes it three miles and stops at a coffee shop, desperately texting her three closest friends for an emergency conversation. Alix explains everything about what happened, and they begin offering advice, from Tamra saying that Alix needs to talk to Emira immediately to Rachel reminding her that she is a “badass” (44).
When Alix gets home, she calls Emira twice before Emira answers. Alix asks if she can come a little early for the party. Alix texts Tamra for more advice, who reminds Alix to not eat pasta so she can start losing the weight she is so worried about. As she waits for Emira to arrive, Alix sets up the party decorations and changes into a jean jumpsuit that loosely matches the aviation themed party. Emira arrives and changes into a white LetHerSpeak polo, which had informally become her uniform at the Chamberlain household. After Emira changes, Alix asks her if they can hug.
Alix begins expressing her apologies for what happened, telling Emira that she will support her if she wants to pursue legal action. Emira declines; before Alix can say more, some of the guests arrive for Briar’s birthday and Emira takes out her gift for Briar, a goldfish. With more guests arriving, Alix begins noticing how out of place she feels in Pennsylvania. Most of the partygoers are coworkers of Peter’s, and to Alix’s surprise, they seemed to have a “strange home-court pride” (52) at the whole incident with Peter and the egged window.
As she wrestles with her feelings about Pennsylvania, Alix realizes that Peter had sat through all of her New York events without complaint. Briar opens her gifts and Alix feels embarrassed that Emira is watching her in this context. That night, Briar falls asleep watching her new fish, whom she has named “Spoons” (56).
Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary
Emira responds cautiously to Alix’s increased interest in her, feeling “cagey” (57) and unsure of why Mrs. Chamberlain is so aggressively trying to build a relationship. But the pay is so good that Emira continues to justify her work with the Chamberlain family—on the Friday after the Market Depot incident, Mrs. Chamberlain includes almost double her usual rate with a note.
Feeling rich, Emira makes plans to take her friends out for dinner. On the subway to get to the restaurant, she runs into Kelley Copeland, the man who filmed her at the grocery store. This time, Emira notes that he is “cuter” (59) and they have a conversation. Before she gets off the train, he offers to buy her a drink later that night.
At dinner, Emira shares her news about Kelley, and the girls support her as long as he has friends to bring along. Later, at the club, Emira is surprised that his friends “were all black” (64). Emira’s friends make fun of her for meeting up with a white man, though they do agree that he is very attractive. Emira and Kelley talk again, and she leaves the club with him to go to his apartment, where they have sex. She wonders about whether or not he has a “fetish” (70) for black women. The chapter closes on Emira looking at a blueprint map of Allentown, where Kelley grew up, which is also “the place where Kelley Copeland completely ruined Alex Murphy’s senior year […] before she became Alix Chamberlain” (71).
Part 1, Chapters 4-5 Analysis
A crucial hint at the end of Chapter 5 reveals a central thread of the tension that will emerge in Such a Fun Age. Alix, who has struggled with establishing her adult life in a way that will make her happy, was previously “Alex Murphy” (71) before Kelley Copeland “ruined” (71) her life. Emira is as yet unaware of this aspect of Alix’s history, but is heading directly into a storm of conflict by dating Kelley. The conclusion of this chapter, which also ends Part 1 of the novel, leaves a cliffhanger: Will Alix and Emira discover that they have a connection through Kelley Copeland, and if they do, will it erupt in a disaster? Both women, in the early chapters, think about where they are in their lives and feel a large dissatisfaction. This rising tension relates to the title of the novel, implying that neither Emira nor Alix is truly at “Such a Fun Age.”
The sexual relationship between Emira and Kelley reflects important understated patterns of racial identity and the ways that racism plays out in cross-racial relationships (romantic or otherwise). Emira is consistently on high alert with Kelley from the moment she encounters him at the grocery store; her friends heighten this awareness by questioning whether or not Emira is sure that she wants to pursue a white man. When Kelley and Emira have sex for the first time, she stays “on top,” which “seemed implicit and implied” (69). The power dynamics between Kelley and Emira are important for Emira to think about and understand, though she doesn’t actively reflect on this yet in the novel. Later, she will more critically examine the ways that she has interacted with Kelley.
Although Briar is one of the least active characters in the novel, she provides an important backdrop for both Emira and Alix as they work to understand themselves and the world around them. In Emira’s case, Briar works to illustrate Emira’s caring, thoughtful, curious side, which she is hesitant to embrace. In contrast, Alix finds herself constantly frustrated by Briar’s behaviors and inability to fit into the life that Alix has so carefully designed. Briar’s birthday party is a perfect example of this: Emira supports the young child by buying her a goldfish and listening to her, while Alix finds herself stymied by the fact that Briar doesn’t want to open any of the gifts, as is more traditional at birthday parties. Reid reveals the tension in each character’s psyche through their interactions with young Briar.
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