Such a Fun Age: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Alix Chamberlain looks back on the years leading up to the night of Emira’s Market Depot incident. Between 2001 and 2004, when Alix is a student at NYU, she sends countless letters to companies and receives nearly $1000 of free products, from nutrition bars to candles to makeup. Eventually, she quits her job at the school paper and starts working as a beauty intern at a small company. She continues asking companies for things, “and it bec[o]me[s] a rare occurrence when she d[oesn’t] receive them.” She writes letters of praise and offers advice for improvement, and she accompanies her reviews with high-quality photos of the product in question. Then she posts everything to her blog. Over time, her blog amasses a small but notable internet following.

When Alix is 25, she meets Peter Chamberlain in a bar. Their personalities mesh perfectly, and they’re both “fancy but not showy.” And Peter also treats Alix’s internet activities “like an actual job,” even though she downplays her business the first time she tries to describe it to him. When Alix and Peter marry three years later, she receives many of the party favors and refreshments for free in exchange for the promise of a positive review.  

Later, when Alix is working in the student recruitment department at Hunter College, a high school English teacher friend recruits her to give a cover-letter-writing workshop to one of her classes. A few months later, one of the students, Lucie, a rich girl with a massive Instagram following, posts the cover letters that earned her acceptances to prestigious colleges to her Instagram account. She writes a caption thanking Alix—“I owe all of my acceptances to Alix,” it reads, along with the hashtag “LetHer.” Almost overnight, Alix becomes a brand. Alix changes her Instagram bio to #LetHerSpeak.

At 29, Alix quits her job at Hunter College and starts holding cover letter and interview workshops at halfway houses and sorority houses. She’s invited to serve on panels and speak about issues like “Hospitality in the Workplace” and “Designing Leaders for Creative Change.” She appears as a guest on feminist podcasts.

One day, during a brunch function, Alix feels a sudden wave of nausea, and it turns out that she’s pregnant. Alix and Peter consider going through with their plan to return to Philadelphia, Alix’s hometown, to raise their child. In Philadelphia, they could have a house and a backyard. But Alix decides to postpone the move in order to focus on her career. 

When Briar is born, Alix’s life is suddenly full of Pack-’n-Plays, chafed nipples, and other childrearing responsibilities. She starts referring to herself in the third person (“Mama’s on the phone”). The Chamberlains have clearly outgrown their Upper West Side apartment, and Peter isn’t becoming the New York City news anchor he once dreamed he’d be. But Alix is too tied to the city to leave just yet. In addition to her blossoming career, she now has a group of girlfriends—Rachel, Jodi, and Tamra—for the first time since college. Alix’s friends have young kids and careers, too, and they support one other.

Then Briar starts to talk, and her voice drives Alix crazy. Briar talks about everything—that she likes hot dogs, that she is or isn’t tired, that she sees a turtle. When Briar naps, Alix feels like the fire alarm inside her head has finally stopped shrieking. Then she realizes she’s pregnant again. When she tells Peter the news, he’s less than excited—they both thought it couldn’t happen while she was breastfeeding.

A couple days later, Peter tells Alix that he’s going to call a broker in Philadelphia. Alix feels that she can’t say no this time; after all, she does work from home, and Philly isn’t so far from New York. Plus, when Alix first met Peter, she told him she could only stand to live in the city for a few more years. And he’s always liked that she’s the kind of person who doesn’t need to be at every event.  

Still, the move comes at the worst time. Alix is in the middle of writing a letter to Hillary Clinton’s campaign team; Clinton has just announced her candidacy and her “feminist platform completely matched [Alix’s] brand.” Alix hopes a link to Clinton will help her remain relevant, even after she moves to a less-relevant city.

For Alix’s last engagement in New York City before the move, she speaks on a panel at an event called Small Business Femme, which focuses on reproductive care and empowering books for girls. Alix decides not to use her breast pump at the event. Instead, she brings Briar to the talk and breastfeeds her on stage. The crowd cheers. Photographers snap photos of Alix, pregnant, breastfeeding, and seated between two business-suit-clad men. The stunt earns Alix thousands of followers and many interview requests. Alix starts paying her small team of interns double to keep up with all the attention. Hillary Clinton’s campaign finally returns Alix’s letter, and Alix gets a book deal. Alix doesn’t make a public announcement about leaving New York, figuring that she’ll take the train in when she’s needed there. She plans to move back once her daughters are older. 

Not long after the move, Alix gives birth to Catherine May, and things start to look up. Alix welcomes the lower cost of living and the bigger house—the Chamberlains could afford to move into a three-story brownstone only a short walk from Rittenhouse Square. Still, she longs to share the happy moments of her new life with her old friends she left behind in New York City.

Alix had never hired a regular babysitter before moving to Philadelphia—in New York, Peter’s mother could always watch Briar. Peter’s new colleagues at the news station send him home with recommendations “of Carlys and Caitlyns.” These girls all tell Alix what huge fans they are of LetHer Speak. But Alix knows these young hopefuls “would never work.” So Alix redirects her “knack for acquiring merchandise” toward acquiring a sitter. She makes a profile on SitterTown.com, and she finds Emira.

Emira’s profile had no picture. All it revealed was that Emira went to Temple University, knows beginner sign language, and can type 125 words per minute. When Emira arrives at Alix’s house for an interview, she continues to confound Alix. While the other girls asked Alix about her plans for her book and future pregnancies, Emira hasn’t even heard of LetHer Speak. And when Alix tells Emira she’s writing a book, Emira doesn’t even ask what the book is about or who Alix’s publisher is. That day, Alix asks Emira when she could start.

And now, Emira watches Briar three times each week. When Emira is there, Alix sits in the sun with Catherine and reads all the trashy magazines she never would have read in Manhattan. In bed one night, Peter remarks how Alix seems so much happier here. Alix wonders if this is true, or if she just cares less now. 

But all that changes when, late one Saturday night in September, someone throws an egg through the Chamberlains’ window. Alix hears someone shout “Racist piece of shit!” followed by the sound of laughter and running feet. “I told you this would happen,” Peter says to Alix as he calls the police.

The egg is a response to a mistake Peter made at work. Earlier, Peter’s co-anchor Laney Thacker ran a segment about the creative ways local students were asking their dates to the Beacon Smith High School homecoming. Peter introduced footage of students presenting their elaborate homecoming invitations. The last clip featured a Black student and his friends as they marched toward a group of girls with a boombox. The friends started to dance, eventually revealing a white flag with Homecoming written on it. The Black teen held out a rose to his invite. The news cut back to the studio. Peter said, “Let’s hope that last one asked her father first.” His comment sparked immediate backlash, and online commenters accused Peter of sexism and racism. Peter immediately apologized to his producers, and they let him off the hook, since he’s young and new at the job. But Alix still worried that pressure from local students would make Peter’s bosses reconsider.

And so, when Emira arrives at their house on that fateful night to take care of Briar, guilt over Peter’s words overwhelms Alix. That’s why later that night, Alix decides to get out of her slump once and for all: she vows to live in Philadelphia, write her book, and get to know Emira Tucker.