Tourist Season Ending Explained: The Final Story’s Climax and Themes

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

Direct Account of the Ending

The narrative arc of Enid Shomer’s collection Tourist Season closes with the title story, centered on Frieda, a former WASP pilot in her seventies, and her husband Milt. The story ends as Frieda and Milt ride the charter bus home from a two‑day trip to St. Augustine. Frieda looks out the window at the moonlight, her book open on her lap, and listens to Milt snore. She recalls the day’s strange events: their friend Irv Snyder collapsed on the lawn, and when Milt loosened Irv’s jacket, Polaroid photographs spilled out—pictures of Irv’s wife, Belle, in explicit sexual poses. The crowd gawked, but Irv soon woke up, having merely dozed off.

Later, Frieda and Milt talk about the photos. Milt admits he likes them, and they joke about buying their own Polaroid. The final line describes Frieda watching Milt sleep: “Soon he would awaken and lumber back into consciousness, into desire, full of the delicious hunger that came from surviving one more season.” The story closes with a sense of reconciled affection and an acceptance of the body’s persistence.

Climax: The Collapse and the Photographs

The climax occurs during the bus tour of St. Augustine. Irv Snyder wanders off alone, and Belle finds him collapsed on the grass. Frieda takes charge, calling for help and checking his pulse. As Milt loosens Irv’s tie, the stack of Polaroids falls out. The crowd quickly turns from the medical crisis to the scandalous pictures, passing them around with “clicks and whistles, oohs and aahs.” For a moment, the private sex life of an elderly couple becomes public spectacle. But the emergency dissolves when a teenager performs CPR and Irv opens his eyes—he had merely fallen asleep.

The exposure of the photos forces Frieda and Milt to confront their own assumptions about aging and desire. Instead of being horrified, they find the photographs oddly liberating. Milt’s earlier complaints about feeling “like an old douche bag” give way to laughter and a shared plan to capture their own lives on film.

Major Character Outcomes

• Frieda: She moves from guilt-ridden avoidance of Milt’s complaints toward a renewed appreciation for her husband. Her identity as a former pilot—a woman who once “swaggered, by God”—is not rejected but integrated into her present. She accepts that marital love outlasts physical decline.
• Milt: His anger and resentment melt after seeing Irv’s photos. He regains his sense of humor and admits he “liked the pictures.” His fear of sexual irrelevance is quieted.
• Irv and Belle Snyder: Irv survives unharmed; his “wandering” turns out to be not dementia but a covert erotic project. Belle emerges as a willing subject, complicating the stereotype of the asexual elderly woman.
• Belle: She is both shocked (crying, “Help him!”) and later presumably complicit with Irv’s photography. The story does not reveal her feelings about the public exposure, leaving an ambiguity.

Resolved and Unresolved Threads

Resolved:

• The question of whether Frieda can endure Milt’s growing neediness is answered by her decision to stay and her final affectionate observation.
• Irv’s perplexing behavior—wandering off, taking pictures—is explained by the Polaroids.
• The tension between Frieda’s past as a pilot and her present as a retiree is harmonized: she uses her old decisiveness when she takes charge of Irv’s collapse.

Unresolved:

• Frieda’s guilt about wanting to escape Milt is set aside rather than fully processed.
• Belle’s reaction to the public circus is left for readers to imagine.
• The larger collection threads—Iris Hornstein’s reincarnation (Iris Hornstein), Sheila’s kidnapping secret (Sheila), Janet’s death by diving (Janet)—are not revisited in the final story, though their themes of transformation and guilt echo through the collection.

Theme Resolution

Aging and invisibility (Aging and Invisibility): The story directly challenges the notion that the elderly lack desire. Irv’s Polaroids and Milt’s renewed hunger insist that sexual identity persists. Frieda’s memory of flying reminds us that her “twenty‑year‑old self” still lives inside.

Marriage and relationships (Marriage and Relationships): Frieda and Milt’s argument over the bus trip—and later their shared laughter—shows that marriage survives by adapting. The final image of Milt sleeping with “one leg between her knees like an anchor” is intimate, not suffocating.

Secrets and guilt (Secrets and Guilt): Irv’s secret photography is exposed without destroying his or Belle’s reputation. Frieda’s small guilt about avoiding Milt is absorbed into a larger affection.

Travel and tourism as metaphor (Travel and Tourism as Metaphor): The bus trip is a literal tourist experience, but the story suggests that we are all tourists in our own lives, observing moments of strangeness. Frieda chooses to step out of the role of passive observer and engage with Milt.

Epilogue or Coda

There is no narrative epilogue. Chapter 11, also titled “Tourist Season,” is a reader’s guide, followed by an interview with the author and discussion questions. This metatextual ending invites readers to reflect on the collection as a whole, reinforcing the idea that the stories cohere around identity, transformation, and the “tourist in one’s own life” motif.

Reasonable Interpretations

1. A celebration of resilience: The final image of “surviving one more season” emphasizes that life, desire, and humor continue despite physical decay.
2. A critique of nursing‑home voyeurism: The crowd’s eager handling of the photos suggests that retirement communities often reduce the elderly to objects of pity or gossip.
3. An acceptance of the body: Frieda and Milt’s decision to buy a Polaroid implies that they will document their own aging, refusing to let embarrassment silence their physicality.
4. An ambiguous view of Belle: She is both a victim (her pictures exposed without consent) and an agent (she posed willingly). Shomer leaves the reader to decide which reading fits.

6 Reader Questions and Answers

1. Why does Frieda insist on going to St. Augustine against Milt’s wishes?
   Frieda craves autonomy and a break from the routine of elderly life. The trip represents a chance to reclaim the independence she felt as a WASP pilot. She tells Milt flatly, “I want to go on this trip… If you don’t go with me—” and leaves the threat unspoken.

2. What do the Polaroid photos reveal about Irv and Belle’s relationship?
   They reveal that Irv’s wandering is not senile confusion but a deliberate erotic pursuit. Belle is not a passive wife but an active participant, posing with a vibrator and in other explicit positions. The photos subvert the assumption that old age means asexuality.

3. How does Milt change after seeing the photos?
   Milt goes from disgust (“Mr. Half-life”) to amusement and even admiration. He says he “liked the pictures” and suggests buying a video camera. His earlier complaints about feeling emasculated vanish, replaced by a shared plan to document their lives.

4. What role does Frieda’s memory of flying WASP planes play in the story?
   It provides a counterpoint to her present. As a young pilot she felt “treated—almost—like a man.” That sense of power and risk later informs her decisiveness during Irv’s collapse. The memory reminds her (and the reader) that aging does not erase past agency.

5. What is the significance of the title “Tourist Season”?
   On the surface, it refers to the annual influx of tourists into Florida. Metaphorically, it points to the characters as tourists in their own lives—observing, snapping photos, but rarely participating. Frieda and Milt begin to break out of that role by engaging with Irv’s photos and planning their own.

6. How does the story resolve Frieda’s guilt about wanting to avoid Milt?
   It does not offer a tidy resolution, but Frieda acknowledges her luck. She thinks, “She was lucky to have a husband—especially a first and only husband—still living.” The final image of Milt snoring beside her suggests she accepts his presence, guilt still present but softened.