52 pages • 1 hour read
Rachel HawkinsThe Villa
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Emily and Chess go into Orvieto to discover the town, behaving like tourists. Chess asks Emily what she’s been listening to, and Emily tells her about one of the podcasts describing the murder at Villa Aestas in 1974. Chess knows the women involved, dismissing them as representative of Los Angeles. Emily doesn’t quite follow what that signifies. Explaining the podcasts further, Emily gestures toward history and the past, saying they have become part of the house’s history. They find a trattoria—a smaller, more casual type of restaurant, and enjoy pasta and wine. After they find a queue of tourists and discover the Pozzo di San Patrizio (St. Patrick’s well), a deep well bored into the medieval hillside town, surrounded by a double helix staircase. Hawkins quotes from Lilith Rising and a guidebook that a fellow tourist gives them. Interspersed with Emily’s descriptions of their tourist activities, the quote from the guidebook describe the well in Orvieto and the material from Lilith Rising depicts the main character Victoria and her love interest Colin, as he tells her about a cave in Ireland called St. Patrick’s Purgatory that allegedly leads to Hell. While they wait in line, Chess receives a call from her agent requesting material from her book—Emily joins her as Chess returns to the villa, determined to write.
Following their sojourn to Orvieto, Emily’s email to her agent Rose appears, and Emily tells her that she has an idea for a new book focused on Villa Aestas, rather than the continuation of the Petal Bloom series.
Back in 1974, Mari describes a gathering with Johnnie, Lara, Pierce, and Noel, who announces he’s bored, and that, unlike the others, Mari continues to be interested. Hurt by the obvious criticism, Lara and Mari discuss Johnnie and his attraction to Mari, before Mari thinks about the competition between Lara and Mari, especially concerning men. Although Lara has had an affair with Pierce following Billy’s death, she recognizes that Pierce loves Mari. As Noel plays the guitar, Lara compliments him, and she makes her way to her bedroom. Noel doesn’t follow as expected, and they continue playing. Mari drifts off to sleep, before waking up to see Noel and Pierce caressing, about to have sex. They motion for Mari to join, which she does. Afterward, they fall sleep near the sofa. Mari awakes to a slamming door, knowing that Lara has seen them laying together. She finds Lara out by the pool, sitting on a diving board, feeling sorry for herself. Angry at Mari for sleeping with Noel, she criticizes Mari, who screams as Lara leaves. Heard by Noel, he tells her he read her novel in progress, calling it good.
An excerpt from a nonfiction book about that summer follows, highlighting that questions remain about the depth and extent of their sexual activities, mirroring the earlier discussion of Mari’s mother and her reputed affairs.
The chapter ends with a profile of Lara Larchmont that appeared (fictionally) in Rolling Stone in November 1979, where Lara very briefly discusses Aestas. The profile suggests that, on the surface, Lara appears unaffected by the events at Villa Aestas, but that, according to an anonymous source, the summer marked her indelibly.
Chapter 8 Summary
At the start of Chapter 8, Emily has written 10,000 words and she recalls a previous attempt at thrillers, following Matt’s announcement that they were trying to have children, a decision that surprised Emily. Emily lets Matt read it—a book about twin sisters in North Carolina who are murder suspects, and one twin did murder someone, but the mystery is which twin committed the crime—and he responds coldly to her writing, a reaction echoed by Rose who kindly reminds Emily of her contract and the competition in the thriller market.
Giulia arrives for provisions, answering questions about the villa’s history, mentioning that her aunt Elena took care of the house in 1974, and that the ensuing infamy destroyed her life. Warning Emily, Giulia cautions her against getting involved in the villa’s past. Giulia leaves, and then Chess asks Emily what she’s been working on. Emily tries to explain, noting that it’s not memoir, but it’s nonfiction, and it focuses on Emily and Lilith Rising. Over the next few days, Chess asks Emily again about the book—and Emily explores the connections between what she’s writing and Lilith Rising, while minimizing the progress she’s made. Chess confesses that she found Emily’s laptop open, and she read some of it, noting that Emily has a book, one that they could share. This project could be their long-awaited co-written project. Blanching at the suggestion, Emily demurs, and Chess responds sullenly.
After Emily and Chess discuss Emily’s work in progress, Hawkins includes an email from Chess to her agent, telling him that her latest self-help book Swipe Right on Life! will be finished soon, and she has another idea for a book, echoing much of what Emily has told her.
In the flashback to Orvieto in 1974 that follows the email, Mari discusses the death of Billy, as his birthday arrives, with Johnnie. Noel, feeling trapped by the dynamics inside the villa, wants to go to Orvieto, where they visit the Pozzo di San Patrizio. Inside, Noel asks about Mari’s mother, and her writings, specifically about Hell. Shocked by his question, Mari composes herself, remembering that she hid her mother’s collection of stories Heart’s Blood and Other Stories in her room growing up, which she brought to Orvieto. Mari tells him the story, “The First Wife,” wasn’t specifically about Hell, but rather about Lilith being a wrong woman.
Noel then starts to discuss Johnnie, dismissing him as a person and musician. Johnnie is standing behind them unseen and hears everything.
Chapter 9 Summary
Emily and Chess go on a picnic the next day, which Emily surmises serves as an apology for Chess reading Emily’s work. They discuss dating, and Emily’s refusal to date. Emily tells Chess about the strange woman's bracelet she found in Matt’s belongings, proof of his infidelity. Chess tries to get Emily to think about the positives of Matt’s infidelity and the divorce, arguing that she and Emily find themselves in Italy because of the breakup.
Chess again begins to discuss Emily’s book, offering that in 1993, Mari returned to the villa, the year she died. While Emily reacts coldly, Chess counters that she did an internet search after she imagined that they would write together. After Emily hears about Mari’s second visit, she goes back to the house, impatient to research the visit. Finding little more than Chess told her, Emily turns to Lilith Rising, and its ending, when the protagonist Victoria hides her diary in the house. Thinking that the ending offers a clue, Emily searches below the initial carved into the window, at the back of the window seat and finds a stack of yellow paper—Emily finds Mari’s diary.
Back in 1974 in Orvieto, Pierce wakes up with a scream, having dreamed that Mari appeared, covered in blood. Mari suggests he should use some of the material in a song, but he just wants to forget it. Pierce’s dream helps Mari continue the novel. She picks up the narrative of Victoria, using the blood-soaked image from Pierce’s dream, along with the recent visit to the well in Orvieto.
Pierce gets up and leaves, taking his guitar. As Mari writes, she hears him playing, only to find out that she is hearing Lara. Lara and Mari talk and Lara cries, confessing that she’s pregnant.
Chapter 9 ends with lyrics from Aestas, from the song “Night Owl.”
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Chapters 7-9 offer clues to Mari’s novel and its narration of the summer at the Villa, while 50 years later, Emily begins to put together these clues to find Mari’s voice outside Lilith Rising, finding her space in the history of the novel and the villa. Both metaphorical and literal, this space in history shows how History, Haunting, and Houses drive the plot of Lilith Rising and Hawkins’s novel. While Emily traces the history Mari left behind the tension between Chess and Emily bubbles just below the surface of their otherwise serene friendship, mimicking the sometimes-volatile relationship between Lara and Mari that the villa witnessed in 1974. More detail emerges, as the links between Mari and her mother become visible, showing how Femininity, Monstrosity, and Truth clash in Lilith’s legacy. Suspense builds as Emily comes close to the answers she searches for and Noel and his entourage approach disaster as grief and death visit prematurely, when Pierce learns that his wife Frances died by suicide.
On their visit to Orvieto, Chess and Emily happen upon a line for Pozzo di San Patrizio, a deep well in the ground in Orvieto surrounded by a double-helix staircase. Neither one actually visits the well, although they stand in the queue—but the well offers an epiphany for Emily, as recalls the lines in Lilith Rising about St. Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland, a mirror reflection of Orvieto’s well and a place that symbolizes how places can hold and create memories. Haunted by legend and history, St. Patrick’s Purgatory in Ireland and his well in Orvieto reinforce what Emily tells Chess at the beginning of their jaunt to Orvieto. Explaining her desire for the past and to know, Emily claims, “We’re now part of the history of this house, and that whole thing was also part of the history of the house, so it’s almost like we owe it to...I don’t know, fate or history or something to learn more about other people who stayed there” (111). These deep holes in the ground, visited for centuries, represent the layers of history and memory that Emily sees in the villa, and which serve as a mark of the Gothic genre. These subterranean spaces become places where sound echoes and where memories rebound. These chapters also depict Noel’s, Mari’s, and Johnnie’s visit to the well in Orvieto, and the tension that occurs there deep in the earth, bubbles forth in the lethal fight between Johnnie and Pierce.
Fame or its pursuit lies at the center of Noel’s visit to Orvieto and the well, as the costs of fame exact their toll: Johnnie worries about Noel being recognized and the chaos that might occur, and Noel instead dismisses Johnnie as a mediocre person and musician deep in the well. Drawn to Mari, whose artistic pedigree matches Noel’s aristocratic one, he asks about her mother and her writing, especially Lilith. Mari fleshes out the legacy of Lilith left behind for her, when she recalls her short story, “The First Wife”:
The shortest story in Marianne’s collection, almost more like a poem, really, a metaphorical, lyrical take on the legend of Lilith, said to be Adam’s wife before Eve. But Lilith had been made of the same earth as Adam rather than made from him, and she hadn’t been obedient, which of course made her wicked. Marianne clearly hadn’t thought so, and neither did Mari. In fact, she remembered the first time she’d read that story, sitting there at the long table behind the rows of books by old dead men, and thought how thrilling it was, having a mother who would write something like this (161-62).
Mari’s legacy revolves around Femininity, Monstrosity, and Truth, with a mother who is represented as a figure of monstrosity and evil, a woman who dared to live her own way, and was punished by death. Spurning the controls of a man, Lilith offers Mari an example of a woman who claims her own prerogative but pays a dreadful price in terms of her reputation—these costs must seem familiar to Mari and Emily who both pay similar ones. Emily loses her marriage and fiction of domestic bliss, by denying Matt’s wish to make her pregnant; Mari shakes off the control of her father, following a somewhat disastrous and bohemian desire, choosing to take Pierce, a married man, as her lover.
Pierce dreams of this disaster—his own death and the artistic fame Mari will attain—which he understands as horror, but which Mari sees as inspiration. Shaken when he jolts awake, Pierce tells her that “it was like you were so tall, and I was so small, I was crouching at your feet […] I was looking up at you and all that blood and thinking, she’s inevitable, she’s inevitable” (175). Like the line that houses remember, this short line arranges in Mari’s mind the ending to her novel: Lilith will rise, women will seek truth and be made monsters, but this blood is not the blood of death or murder, but birth and rebirth. Pierce, like Matt, fundamentally misunderstands the body—Pierce can’t see past the kneejerk reaction to blood, and Matt can’t take care of a women experiencing symptoms that mimic common ways of pregnancy. Both men, however, want the artistic creation or the baby, but not the pain.
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