Miranda Cowley Heller’s debut novel The Paper Palace is an emotional, romantic mystery told through two alternating storylines from Elle Bishop’s life. One storyline is the present day, and the other is Elle’s childhood through to the present; this gives readers a sense of Elle as an adult, as well as the events of her life that have shaped her personality.

Heller is the former senior vice president and head of drama series at HBO, and she grew up spending summers at Cape Cod, where much of the novel takes place. Published in July of 2021, The Paper Palace is a Reese’s Book Club book. It is a work of literary and women’s fiction about secrets, love, lies, and the choices of Elle’s life; namely that she must choose between her childhood friend and a stable family life with her husband. This novel explores complex and possibly triggering issues of, rape, incest, child abuse, and pedophilia. This guide refers to the 2021 edition from Riverhead Books.

Plot Summary

The first-person narrator, Elle (Eleanor) Bishop, is a 50-year-old happily married mother of three, and the novel opens at her family’s summer home, which they refer to as “The Paper Palace.” Elle has returned here every summer of her life, but a major change occurs when Elle and her childhood best friend, Jonas, have sex for the first time while Elle’s family is occupied

Elle does genuinely love Peter, but now Elle must decide between the life she made for herself with Peter and the life she always imagined with her childhood love, Jonas. The novel traces the 24 hours after Elle and Jonas had sex as well as the Elle’s mother’s childhood and Elle’s childhood.

Elle’s parents are divorced, and she and her sister Anna primarily live with her mother and stepfather, Leo. Leo’s son Conrad comes to live with them when Elle is 14 years old. Leo’s daughter Rosemary lives with her mother in Memphis.

Leo and Anna do not get along in the early parts of the novel, and Leo decides to send Anna away to boarding school. Anna doesn’t want to go, and she blames her mother for taking Leo’s side. She grows distant from the family, and she eventually moves to Los Angeles for college and work.

Elle and Anna’s father, Henry, is also a distant presence in their lives. He remarries twice in the novel. His first wife after leaving Wallace, Elle’s mother, is a woman named Joanne, who hates that Henry has children. The two of them move to London, making Anna bitter at her father for not choosing them. Elle is more understanding; however, when Henry is with his third wife, Mary, Elle and her father get into a huge argument. Later, Mary and Henry decide to move Elle’s grandmother to a nursing home against her will. Granny Myrtle calls Elle in a frightened state, but Elle arrives too late to rescue her, and she passes away. Elle never forgives her father and doesn’t speak to him again.

Elle meets Jonas when they are both young kids in the Back Woods. Two summers later, they grow to become close friends, walking to the beach together, swimming in the pond, playing games, and keeping each other’s secrets. Conrad teases Elle for hanging out with a boy two years younger than her.

When Elle is 16 years old, Conrad comes to her room at night for the first time. He pulls her nightgown up and masturbates over her. Conrad thinks she’s unaware, and Elle doesn’t tell anyone so that she can pretend that everything is normal. She knows that if she had screamed that first night, everyone in the family would be tainted forever.

Conrad’s abuse continues for over a year until Elle starts taking birth control and Conrad leaves to spend a summer in Memphis with his mother and sister Rosemary. When he returns, he starts cleaning up after himself and acting nicer to Elle. Elle thinks she is safe, but the following summer, Conrad rapes Elle after watching her go for a naked swim in the pond. Again, Elle doesn’t tell anyone.

That summer, Elle and Jonas take sailing lessons together. They are out on the water when Jonas asks Elle if she and Conrad have ever done anything together. He says that Conrad said Elle lets him feel her up. Elle says that’s disgusting, and she would die before letting Conrad touch her. However, Elle can’t stop crying, and Jonas says he doesn’t understand what’s wrong if it’s not true. He asks if Conrad has ever hurt her, and she reveals Conrad’s abuse.

Leo wants to take a family sailing trip to the point of the Cape, and Elle insists on inviting Jonas. Elle, Jonas, and Conrad are in the small boat together, and Jonas mutters to Elle that he can’t look at Conrad. Elle tells him he has to pretend like everything is normal. He says that she shouldn’t let Conrad get away with it. Then, Conrad gets knocked over by the boom, and he falls into the water. Jonas and Elle do not throw him the life preserver, and Conrad drowns.

Leo leaves Wallace a few months later, leaving her pregnant, depressed, and alone. Wallace finds Elle’s journal and discovers that she was being sexually abused but assumes that it was Leo instead of Conrad. Elle lets her mother believe this.

Elle moves to London and meets Peter. They start dating, and Peter gets along well with Wallace, bringing her old spirit and liveliness back. When Elle and Peter have sex for the first time, she lies and tells him she is a virgin. One day, Elle runs into Jonas at a coffee shop for the first time in seven years. Jonas says he doesn’t regret what happened because Conrad was hurting Elle. She says they both should regret it and that she would have survived.

Years later, Elle is hit with a sudden urge to see Jonas again, and she lies to Peter in order to meet him. Jonas tells Elle that he will never love anyone the way he loves her. Jonas eventually marries a woman named Gina. Elle and Peter also get married. Four years after Elle’s wedding, her sister Anna passes away from cancer.

The last few chapters of the novel all take place in the present the summer that Elle and Jonas have sex for the first time. Peter has to go to Memphis for a work trip, and Elle goes with him in order to visit Conrad’s grave and visit her stepsister. Rosemary informs Elle that Conrad was also abusing her. The summer Conrad went to Memphis is when he began raping Rosemary every night. This information changes Elle’s whole outlook on the past, as well as her guilty conscience regarding Conrad’s death. It allows her to go back to Cape Cod and finally have sex with Jonas.

The next day, Elle decides to stay with Peter and not leave him for Jonas. She tells Peter there is nothing going on between her and Jonas, and she only loves him. However, the next morning, Elle sees Jonas waiting across the pond. She takes off her wedding band and leaves it behind when going out for her swim.