51 pages • 1 hour read
Lisa BarrWoman on Fire
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.
Chapters 30-39Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 30 Summary: “Manhattan”
Margaux can get the Chelsea gallery back up and running after Griffin sold four paintings. She feels vindicated that she can save the galleries after her father nearly ruined them. She is waiting for Adam to arrive with his artwork. She still feels so much for him, but also feels betrayed. When Adam arrives and shows her his paintings, she recognizes he is still a great artist—and that his newest model is Jules.
Chapter 31 Summary: “Chicago”
Jules’s mother, Liz Roth, is concerned for her safety and doesn’t want Jules to chase the story anymore. To ease her concerns, Jules reluctantly enlists her help. She then gets a call from Bakker. He also does not believe Dan died by suicide. He tells Jules to check with the editors from Spotlight. He has learned that Stefan Dassel’s grandfather was highly ranked within the Nazi organization. Otto Dassel eventually freed Lillian Baum from Auschwitz and married her after the war. The marriage didn’t last long, however. Lillian is still alive.
Chapter 32 Summary
Liz wakes Jules to tell her Adam is waiting for her. Jules is completely unprepared to meet him. For one, she was up all night researching. She acquired a photo of Arno Baum from 1932, and she found Lillian Dassel in a convalescent center in Baden-Baden, Germany. When she sees Adam, he tells her what happened between him and Margaux, insisting they did not sleep together. He only painted her because she forced him to. Jules believes him and shares her newest findings. He wants to go with her to Germany, but she says that would really blow his cover. He recommends she take her mother then.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Correns, France”
Margaux is searching for a bill of sale proving her grandfather legally purchased Woman on Fire. After much searching, it dawns on her to check her grandmother’s file. She finds it there. She also finds his diary.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Paris, 1939”
In a flashback, Charles de Laurent is working in his Parisian gallery when Helmuth Geisler barges in with some of his thugs. He demands that Charles give him the Engel painting. He has a contract for him to sign. If Charles doesn’t comply, his thugs will destroy his gallery. Charles, inevitably, must surrender the painting to Geisler.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Chicago”
After Adam leaves, Jules and her mother pack for Germany. Jules lies to the director of the convalescent center where Lillian lives about being related to Lillian. She said that she and her mother descended from a relative murdered in Auschwitz. Jules feels like a child again with her mother alongside her, but Liz’s legal expertise and ability to speak Yiddish are admittedly useful.
Chapters 36 Summary: “Baden-Baden, Germany”
Jules and her mother arrive at Lillian’s convalescent center. The director escorts them to the tree under which Lillian likes to sit when she’s outside. When Lillian is wheeled out by a nurse, she seems so frail that Jules wonders if she will even be able to answer their questions; however, Lillian is still very lucid in her old age. She knows that she doesn’t have any American relatives, so Jules tells her the truth about why they are there. Lillian says that she hates that painting because it has brought nothing but sorrow. However, she still has it.
Chapter 37 Summary: “Correns, France”
Wyatt has the painting ready to ship. He has bad news, too. He has discovered that Ellis Baum is Anika Baum’s son, which means Ellis’s claim to the painting trumps Margaux’s. He has also learned that Spotlight had a photo of her, which they gave to Dan and which he sent to Jules. Margaux flies into a rage. She hurls Dan’s computer at Wyatt and then runs outside. She sprints until she vomits and swears she will make Jules pay.
Chapter 38 Summary: “Chicago”
Jules gets a call from Margaux. She claims to have obtained Jules’s number from Carice Van der Pol, who said that Jules would like to interview her for her newspaper. Margaux suggests they meet in two hours in the lobby of her hotel. Jules leaves a cryptic message for Louise, and a sticky note for her mom, and then leaves to see Margaux.
Chapter 39 Summary
Margaux is already in the lobby when Jules walks in. Jules plays the role of journalist, which amuses Margaux, but she quickly breaks the charade and gets to the reason she wants to meet. She wants Jules to tell her everything she knows about both herself and the painting and to surrender all of her documents and photos to her. She also demands that Jules write a positive article about her. Otherwise, she will kill Jules’s mother. She shows Jules a photo of Liz handcuffed to a bed. Jules tries to think of a way out but must succumb to Margaux in the end.
Chapters 30-39 Analysis
Through the continued conflict over Woman on Fire, Ownership Rights and Nazi-looted Art come to the fore once more in this section. While Margaux’s copy is a forgery, she believes that the bill of sale she finds among her grandfather’s possessions gives her a legal right to the painting. However, Ellis Baum’s claim to Woman on Fire might be stronger than her own due to his mother modeling for the painting. The discovery of Lillian Dassel (née Baum), Ellis’s living half-sister, further complicates ownership rights of Woman on Fire—especially because she still possesses the original. As the mystery of the painting and the lives surrounding it deepens, the thriller becomes more complex.
These chapters continue to situate Jules as the heroine and primary investigator, while secondary characters support her efforts. Bakker does much of the work in finding Lillian, for instance, but Jules must hunt down the rest of the story. This reflects a typical example of an investigative journalist receiving a hot tip and following it up, usually with even more explosive revelations for the story. Adam also takes a supporting role following his reconnection with Jules, in part by staying behind when she leaves for Germany. In order for Jules to maintain her role as a strong, independent female heroine, she must face obstacles now without intervention from men.
Jules again breaks principles regarding The Ethical and Moral Responsibilities of Investigative Journalism when she lies about having a relative who died in the Holocaust in order to access Lillian. Jules is aware of the unethical and immoral behavior about lying about such a historical event that is already rife with immoral and inhumane behavior. Still, it is only through her lie that she meets Lillian and learns that she still has Woman on Fire. Jules’s behavior raises a key ethical question: namely, whether the ends justify the means.
Irony factors heavily into these chapters, as the reader is aware that Margaux knows Adam’s real motivation is not to reenter the art scene, but Adam is not aware of the extent of Margaux’s knowledge. Nonetheless, Adam is creating new art, deepening the irony when he shows Margaux his latest paintings, which reveal the strength of his emotions for Jules, rather than Margaux. Margaux vows revenge not only because of the semblance of emotions she still has for Adam, but especially because she cannot bear losing the affection game to Jules. It is notable that while other characters have used the word “psychopath” to describe Margaux, she now begins to use that word to describe herself, foreshadowing her turn toward even greater villainous behavior and even more revelations about her past.
As Margaux and Jules finally find themselves face-to-face, there is a twist as Margaux reveals, once again, how quickly and decisively she is able to gain the upper hand over others. In kidnapping Liz, Margaux ups the ante and causes even greater stress for Jules than when she murdered Dan. She has Jules firmly against the ropes, which will test Jules’s bravery and defiance and make her subsequent victory all the greater.
