48 pages • 1 hour read
Seraphina Nova GlassOn a Quiet Street
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of addiction, violence, and domestic abuse. The text also contains offensive language about mental health conditions, which the guide replicates in quotation only.
Caleb, a college student living in the gated community of Brighton Hills, Oregon, is standing in front of a car yelling at the driver. He hears a gunshot. Then, he is hit by the car, and he falls onto the ground. He hears two people get out of a car. A man tells the woman that they have to leave. The car pulls away as sirens approach. Then, Caleb dies.
Chapter 1 Summary: “One Year Later: Paige”
A year after his death, Caleb’s mother, Paige, is standing in her garden when the newspaper boy throws a paper that hits her dog. Paige throws the paper back at the newspaper boy and screams at him. Shortly after, two cops arrive and give her a warning. She berates them for not doing more to investigate her son’s murder. As they leave, Paige’s husband, Grant, arrives. They are separated, but he comes over once a week to clean up the house. Paige tells him that she snuck into her neighbor Danny Howell’s garage and took pictures of the dented fender of his Mercedes. She says that she is going to take it to the police. Grant does not approve of her investigations, but he does not argue with her.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Cora”
Cora Holmon, Paige’s best friend, is preparing Sunday breakfast for her husband, Finn, and her teenage daughter, Mia. Finn remarks that he thought that Cora was doing Weight Watchers when she makes pancakes. Mia comes downstairs and tells her mom that she won’t stay for breakfast; she is going to a friend’s house. Then, Cora uses her phone to spy on her neighbor, Georgia Kinney. Finn tells her that Georgia rarely leaves the house because she is agoraphobic. At her request, he gets out his day planner to find a day for Cora to invite Georgia over. She notices that he has plans for drinks with someone called “C” marked for that evening, even though he told her before that he was going to a retirement party for a colleague. When she asks him again about his plans for that night, he says that he is going to a birthday party. She knows that he is lying.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Georgia”
Georgia, Cora’s neighbor, is at home with her baby, Avery. Before she moved to Oregon, Georgia was a server at a resort in the south of France. That was where she met her husband, Lucas, who is 13 years older than her and wealthy. They married soon after. Cora arrives at Georgia’s house with an apple crumble. They sit in the garden and talk; it is the first time that they have spoken. Cora invites Georgia over for “‘cake and wine’” (35), even though she knows that Georgia is agoraphobic. Georgia wonders why Cora is trying so hard to be friends.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Cora”
Later, while folding laundry, Cora wonders what traumatic thing happened to Georgia to make her afraid to leave her house. She decides that she is going to make an effort to help Georgia. Then, Cora finds half a joint with pink lipstick on it in the laundry. She wonders if it comes from a woman with whom her husband, Finn, is cheating. She has had suspicions before. Years ago, after Paige told her that Finn was at a restaurant with a redhead looking cozy, Cora confronted them at the restaurant. Finn told her that she was acting “crazy” and that the woman was a client. Although Cora wasn’t entirely convinced, she let it go, but now she is growing more paranoid. Cora asks her daughter, Mia, if the joint is hers, and Mia says that it is not. Cora believes her.
Cora goes over to Paige’s house and tells Paige about her growing suspicions that Finn is cheating on her. Paige suggests a plan: She will follow Finn to see if he is cheating, and she will also try to seduce him. If he reciprocates, they will know that he is a cheater. Cora agrees.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Georgia”
Georgia takes her laundry down to the unfinished basement. She sees some stagnant brown water spilling over the clogged utility sink and it causes her to have a panic attack. She rushes upstairs, where her husband, Lucas, finds her. He calms her and the baby. Later, they eat dinner together, but Georgia doesn’t mention Cora’s visit to him. After dinner, Georgia takes Avery to the park where she is approached by a teenager selling pot. He gives her a small sample bag. Georgia feels that she “want[s] it […] need[s] it” (59).
Chapter 6 Summary: “Paige”
Paige sits in her study and reviews her surveillance camera footage of Cora’s house. She hasn’t found Finn doing anything suspicious yet. Grant arrives with food and tells her about the charity event that he is holding at his restaurant. Cora is helping to organize it. While they eat, Paige tells Grant about a time last year when Caleb arrived home from a party and told her that he saw Finn getting a blow job in his car from someone who was not Cora.
The next day, Paige tails Finn to a seedy motel where he goes into a room with a sex worker. She takes pictures. That night, she goes to a bar where she knows that Finn will be. She deliberately runs into him, and they spend the night drinking together. She drives Finn home and they kiss, but when Paige tries to get him to go further, he turns her down.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Cora”
Cora is at the charity dinner at Grant’s restaurant, Moretti’s. The sound system goes out, so Cora takes over playing the piano until the event is over. After the guests leave, Cora and Grant eat dinner together. Grant asks if Cora will fill in to play the piano for his weekly restaurant piano night. She agrees. Then, they dance to the music together. They almost kiss, but they pull away at the last minute. Cora is thrown by her desire for him. She gets in a cab and goes home. As she walks into the house, she sees Lucas, Georgia’s husband, standing in his garage with a drink in his hand, staring out at the pouring rain and sleet, unmoving.
Prologue-Chapter 7 Analysis
On a Quiet Street has a structure typical of the mystery thriller genre. Like many mysteries, the opening scene depicts the crime that will be explored and investigated throughout the novel. The opening Prologue describes, from a third-person perspective, the murder of Caleb. The limited details of the scene generate a mystery surrounding the identity of the man and the woman Caleb hears and the origin of the gunshot. The language is also ambiguous enough to leave open many possibilities. Any female-male pair could be considered suspects. It also leaves open the question of motive. This creates suspense and tension throughout the novel. For instance, Cora’s discovery of evidence of her husband Finn’s infidelity suggests that he could have been at the scene with one of the women with whom he was cheating. This suspicion is seemingly further confirmed when Paige mentions that Caleb thinks that he saw Finn in a car with a woman who was not Cora. As discussed by the characters themselves later on in the novel, this fact could create a possible motive if Caleb threatened to reveal this secret. As is typical of the genre, over the course of the novel, other clues are revealed leading to the ultimate revelation that Nicola (still identified as Georgia at this point in the text) killed Caleb.
On a Quiet Street is written in shifting third-person limited and first-person perspectives. All of the “Paige” chapters are written in third-person limited perspective. This provides greater insight into the larger setting and context in which the narrative is set. It allows for more exposition than first-person perspective, such as of the facts of the crime as far as they are known by the characters in the novel; for example, “There was a gun next to Caleb’s body, but it wasn’t fired, and there was no gunshot wound” (17). Like first-person perspective, however, third-person limited perspective gives insight into the character’s thoughts and feelings, albeit from a greater distance than is possible in first-person perspective. Thus, elements of Paige’s emotional state and personality are revealed in her chapters, such as when she “wanted to scream at everyone she met” (16). The Paige chapters, the only ones written in third-person limited perspective apart from the Prologue, convey both background information and characterization.
The other chapters, those entitled “Cora” and “Georgia” (or, later, “Nicola”), are written from the first-person perspective of each character. This shifting structure helps to create suspense and tension in the mystery. Each character can reveal their experiences or what they know without the other characters being aware. This creates “dramatic irony,” a literary technique whereby the audience knows more than the characters. For example, Cora has a moment of sexual tension with Paige’s husband, Grant, following the charity dinner. Although they do not kiss, this moment of possible infidelity colors later moments between Cora and Paige. It raises the possibility that Cora feels guilty for nearly kissing her best friend’s husband, although they are separated. Paige is unaware of the attraction between Cora and Grant, which leads to an awkward moment in Chapter 9.
First-person perspective also evokes pathos and empathy for the character. For instance, when Cora feels jealous of Nicola, she thinks to herself, “If I were that freaking gorgeous, I’d be thrilled all the time” (22). This reflection creates an intimate tone since this is an insight that other characters do not get into Cora’s views. However, the following chapter reveals the extent to which Nicola is miserable. She describes her life as a “personal hell” (37). Unlike the reader, Cora is unaware that Nicola is so unhappy despite her seemingly perfect appearance and life. This example of shifting perspective underlines how dramatic irony creates both tension and pathos.
