Chapter 17 Summary, Analysis, and Discussion Questions

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens with the narrator's parents, Mort and Alice, arriving at the beach, ferried by Jamie and Maya. The narrator is moved to tears at the sight of her white-haired parents. Willa greets her grandparents warmly and offers to fetch a cold drink for her grandmother, who asks Willa to open the seltzer can for her—a small moment that prompts Nick and the narrator to exchange a concerned glance, which Alice deflects with humor.

Jamie and Maya swim while the rest of the family eats lunch. The narrator has made sandwiches tailored to each parent's preferences: turkey and Swiss with coleslaw and yellow mustard for her father, and a very thin slice of turkey with a scraping of butter for her mother, reflecting Alice's war-rationed upbringing. They share salt-and-vinegar chips and macaroni salad, passing a single fork around.

During the meal, Mort asks Willa to help him understand why there is so much spam in his spam folder. Willa patiently explains that spam is expected in a spam folder, and offers to delete the emails for him. Mort also reveals his fondness for actual Spam, the canned meat, which Alice finds revolting. Willa eventually offers to just delete the emails for him since he does not care to learn how.

The narrator dozes under her baseball cap, listening to conversations around her. She overhears her father explaining Yiddish terms to Willa—the difference between a schlemiel (a klutz who trips and scares a bird) and a schlimazel (the person the bird shits on), and warns against being a schmegegge. Jamie, meanwhile, explains his misunderstanding of