56 pages • 1 hour read
Kate Quinn, Janie ChangThe Phoenix Crown: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
InterludeChapter Summaries & Analyses
Interlude: “Entr’acte”
Interlude, Chapter 26 Summary: “September 1906”
Alice is living in the Tahoe area, hiking and spending time in nature while traumatized from the earthquake. She writes Gemma, Suling, and Reggie, but doesn’t tell them about her mental health issues. At the post office, Alice talks to a girl about studying for school. She is frustrated with patriarchal norms that discourage higher education for women. She thinks about how being good and talented is not enough for a woman. Suling writes that she burned offerings for Madam Ning and her other family members who died that day. Reggie sends a sketch, and Gemma writes that she married George. The next letter is from Clarkson, who says Henry is presumed dead, but no one has found a body. Alice believes he is still alive.
Interlude, Chapter 27 Summary: “September 1908”
Suling and Reggie move to New York, then Paris. In a Saks department store, Suling meets an American heiress named Natalie Barney, who helps Suling get a foot in the door at Callot Soeurs (an important French designer in this era). Her portfolio, especially the dragon robe, gets her the job. There is less anti-Asian racism in France, but Reggie still struggles with nightmares and is having difficulty regaining the weight she lost in the asylum. Reggie is unable to make new serious art (she only does sketches), but she gets some commercial work, like posters for a Moulin Rouge show, and she teaches painting. They look after the Queen of the Night cutting and read Alice’s letter. She says that Gemma is in Buenos Aires, and Clarkson has left the police to work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Suling thinks about how they all are dealing with trauma.
Interlude, Chapter 28 Summary: “July 1910”
Gemma, George, the bird Toscanini, and the Queen of the Night cutting move to a new place in Buenos Aires. After the flower bloomed for the first time in New York, Gemma got the offer to move to Buenos Aires. She thinks Caruso might have put in a good word for her. The Teatro Colon is very tolerant of Gemma’s migraines, which are getting worse after the earthquake. George finds steady gigs as a musician, including playing tango in cafes and working for the opera. Gemma prepares for Tosca and plans to write Alice and Suling with their new address. In Suling’s latest letter, she told them she’d been promoted at Callot Soeurs, and Alice’s latest letter mentioned that she is traveling on the East Coast. Gemma hopes that Henry is dead. However, a year later, they get Alice’s telegram about the Phoenix Crown and head to Paris.
Interlude Analysis
The Entr’acte is the shortest section, but it spans several years and countries. This section takes place between 1906 and 1911, and the three chapters are each from a different perspective: Alice in the Tahoe area, Suling in Paris, and Gemma in Buenos Aires. The section ends around the same time as the Prologue—the narratives converge by Act II. All of the women work hard during this time period, both to pay their bills and to advance their aspirations, developing the theme of Class, Labor, and Gender. In 1906, Suling works “as a seamstress in Oakland to pay rent for her and Reggie, those talented fingers wasted on cheap calico as she was paid half what a white seamstress would get” (285). Wage inequality bound up with both sexism and racism. A few years later, Suling obtains a better job in Paris, sewing more artistic fabrics and designs. Suling wonders, “If not for [working at] Callot Soeurs, would she be as haunted as Reggie?” (292). Advancing her career, and rising in socioeconomic class, helps her manage the trauma she endured in San Francisco.
Reggie is unable to do any serious painting, and her artistic block illustrates one aspect of The Relationship Between Art and Trauma. The trauma of being imprisoned in the asylum leaves her unable do any form of art other than small sketches and teaching “Americans in Paris how to paint” (290). Despite this limitation, Paris presents her with a level of freedom she has never experienced before. Reggie and Suling are even able to live openly as a couple. In Paris, “residents [are] accustomed to living with eccentric artists in their midst” (289). However, it isn’t until after the women confront Henry and have him arrested that Reggie can paint again. Trauma does not inspire art in her case—it takes away the ability to make art.
Like Suling, Gemma takes odd jobs to make ends meet until she gets a break in her career. She sings “in a church to make ends meet” (285) until she is hired by the opera in Buenos Aires. Gemma also finds success in love and marries George. He “never seemed to worry about work, but somehow he always found it” (296). This develops the theme of Class, Labor, and Gender. It is easier for men to find work than women. This fact upsets Alice. She thinks, “Why did it have to be so hard for talented girls, trying to succeed at anything?” (285). Women like Suling have to face both institutional sexism and racism. Suling, Gemma, and Reggie all face class-based discrimination. They have had to rely on upper class patrons like Henry, who do not care about their safety.
In this section, the symbol of the dragon robe is developed. It becomes Suling’s lucky charm when it helps her land the job in Paris. After “[o]ne look at Suling’s portfolio of embroidery, and after gasping over the dragon robe, the eldest Callot sister had hired Suling on the spot” (289). Her repair work on the robe demonstrates her artistry. Suling relies on the luck of this robe in Act II to gain entrance to a party where Henry and Reggie are.
