58 pages • 1 hour read
Mira T. LeeEverything Here Is Beautiful
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 9-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3, Chapter 9 Summary: “Yonah”
Shortly after Lucia told Yonah that she would come and visit him in New Jersey, he discovered that he had testicular cancer. He decided to build a house in Meyer, Minnesota, and lived happily for several years; he visited Israel in the winter and returned in the summer. When Yonah discovered that his cancer had spread into his lungs two months ago, he decided to call Lucia. She immediately flew from Ecuador to Minnesota.
Once in Minnesota, Lucia takes care of Yonah, taking him to doctor’s appointments and making him soup at home. Yonah’s estranged son Jonny comes to stay with his father and so does Miranda. Yonah notices things seem tense between Miranda and Lucia and tells Lucia to let go of the past. Lucia says that Miranda always tries to get her to take her pills, which she hates, and Yonah asks why she doesn’t stop, saying that she won’t need them here. Later, Miranda gently confronts Yonah about telling Lucia she doesn’t need to take her medication. Yonah states that it’s okay for them to disagree on things since they’re family. Yonah asks her about Stefan and finds out things have been difficult between them. Yonah thanks Miranda for coming to see him despite her being busy, and she says that as much as she hates airplanes, she’d rather see him alive than dead. Yonah states that this is why he loves Miranda.
Yonah’s daughter soon arrives in Minnesota as well. The family plays card games together until he makes a joke about his death, which upsets his son; Yonah feels guilty, wondering how many times he has left to make his son feel better. Soon, Yonah begins coughing up blood, and a hospital bed is placed in his bedroom. He gets comfortable in his new bed, and he tells everyone that he wants shakshuka. Miranda, Lucia, and Jonny have a competition to see whose recipe is better, and Yonah thinks that his life is pretty great.
Later, Lucia throws Yonah a birthday party, despite it not being his birthday. She invites people from the hospital and the neighborhood, and they make awkward small talk. The next day, Miranda says goodbye to Yonah, telling him that she loves him. Neither of them can look at each other, as they are both aware that Yonah is dying.
After Miranda leaves, Lucia lies in the bed next to Yonah’s and tells him about her life in Ecuador. She shows him photos of Essy and tells him that, one day, she will tell her about him. The next day, Yonah is in a lot of pain. He is given pain medication and tells Lucia that she has to let him go and that she will be happy with her family back in Ecuador. Vehemently, she shakes her head, denying Yonah’s words. Saddened by this, Yonah closes his eyes, thinking, “this is life” (331).
Part 3, Chapter 10 Summary: “Meyer, MN”
The people of Meyer, Minnesota wonder about Lucia and her relationship to Yonah, whom they didn’t know much about. They recognize Lucia from the neighborhood and the party she held in Yonah’s honor, but they don’t know much about her either.
A young woman named Sadie Dunkel finds Lucia the day after a winter storm passes. Lucia was curled in a spot between two trees, frozen to death. The people of the town speculate about what happened to Lucia. Some people say it was grief that led her to walk out into a storm. Others wonder if she simply got lost in the forest.
Stefan is in the kitchen when Miranda sets down her phone with a blank face. She tells him that the hospital called, and Lucia’s body was found frozen in the snow. Miranda wonders what happened, how to tell Manny, and if she could have done anything to prevent it. Miranda and Stefan fly to Minnesota to collect Lucia’s ashes. While there, she asks to see where Lucia’s body was discovered.
Three weeks later, Miranda arrives in Ecuador at the airport to give Manny Lucia’s ashes. Neither one of them blames the other, but they both still feel immense guilt. Miranda describes the place in Minnesota where Lucia died, explaining that it was beautiful. Both Manny and Miranda break down crying.
Part 3, Chapters 9-10 Analysis
Through Yonah and Lucia’s deaths, Lee continues to explore the topic of Balancing Self-Care and Family Obligations, particularly through the lens of individual choice. From the start, Yonah advocated for Lucia’s right to make her own choices; that has not changed, and now, it applies to himself as well. Yonah refuses to be taken to the hospital despite the wishes of the others, adamant about dying in his own home. Yonah also tells Lucia that if she doesn’t want to take her medication, she shouldn’t. When Miranda expresses frustration over this, Yonah says, “Family, we disagree. I tell her it’s okay if we disagree. It’s my opinion” (325). This sums up the complicated nature of caretaking, and suggests that there is no single right answer to caring for a loved one who is ill. This conversation also shows how far Miranda and Yonah have come since they met; they consider each other family, and though their opinions on Lucia’s treatment clash, they still love and respect each other.
As Lucia lies with Yonah in his bed, she tells him about Essy, and the two consider the topic of love: “Someday, I will tell her about you, she says. What will you say? I will tell her love is everything. She looks at me, then down at her hands. But now, like this, I think love is just a romantic way of explaining selflessness” (330). To Yonah, love is selfless. In his eyes, to love someone is to allow them to do what makes them happiest and most fulfilled, even at the expense of his own happiness. Yonah has exemplified this belief throughout the novel: He watched Lucia leave him in order to have children without complaint, and he dutifully visited her in the hospital. Now, Yonah recognizes the love in Lucia’s selflessness, as she attends to him in his final days even though it means she is apart from her own family. This sentiment also applies to the other characters, such as Miranda, who has made countless selfless decisions for Lucia throughout her life.
The theme of Perception Versus Reality emerges when Lucia dies in Chapter 10. The townspeople contemplate the circumstances around her death and make assumptions based on their limited knowledge: “It was grief, some said. […] Grief drives people to recklessness, despair […] anyone can get disoriented. Lost in the woods. Caught in a bad place in a storm” (334-35). Through their speculations, Lee shows how little they knew of Lucia—they list several different ages for her, and they make guesses as to what she was cooking based on the ingredients left on her counter. Eventually, Lee directly states that “it [is] impossible to know the truth of another’s interior life. [Isn’t] it?” (337). Since Lucia’s death occurred outside of the narrative, the reader is left in the same position as the other characters and must make their own assumptions about her death. The reader is tasked with carefully reflecting on their own biases, contemplating how their perception of events may affect their understanding of reality.
The people in town are unaware of Lucia’s mental health condition, so they don’t speculate if it was what caused her death. This is not true for Lucia’s loved ones. This distinction between those who were aware and those who weren’t depicts The Stigmatization of Mental Health Conditions. Despite there being other possibilities and the death being ruled accidental, those who know about Lucia’s history with mental illness can’t help but assume it played a role in her death, as Miranda speculates in the Epilogue.
