The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Rosenblum, Emma. Bad Summer People. Flatiron Books, May 23, 2023. Kindle.

In the novel Bad Summer People by Emma Rosenblum, Robert Heyworth thought the people of Salcombe were insane. He never imagined that he would become embroiled in their lifestyle as quickly as he did. First, he was having an affair with the beautiful, powerful, and married Lauren Parker. Then he decided to give himself a head start on the fortune he imagined he would make for himself in New York by stealing from the Salcombe Yacht Club where he was working as the tennis pro. Robert’s summer takes a disastrous turn when his misdeeds are discovered.

Robert always believed that it had been intended for him to be rich. He thought he was set for life in college when he was dating Julie, a girl whose family was independently wealthy. After dating for two years, Julie broke off the relationship when he told her that he wanted to spend his first summer out of college working as a tennis pro at an elite tennis club instead of working in a financial firm. After that, Robert’s life did not go according to his plan.

Twenty years later, he was still working as a tennis pro. He had accepted the job at Salcombe after attempting to settle into a job at a contracting company. Now, terribly unhappy, Robert decided that he would spend one more summer teaching tennis lessons before he tried to find a job that would pay good money in New York. Inspired by stories of the previous tennis pro who had stolen from the club, Robert decided that he could steal and not be caught.

Meanwhile, other regular summer residents were dealing with their own personal dramas. Sam Weinstein, who had grown up in Salcombe and was the town’s golden boy, was stressed because he had been falsely accused of sexual harassment and feared he would lose his job. Unbeknownst to Sam, Sam’s wife, Jen, was having an affair with Sam’s best friend, Jason Parker. Jason’s wife was having an affair with Robert. Rachel Woolf, the town gossip, warned Sam, who she had loved since they were kids, that his wife was having an affair but would not tell him with whom she was having the affair.

The summer drama came to a climax on the day of the women’s doubles tennis tournament. Jen and Lauren teamed up in the doubles competition and beat Rachel and her partner, Emily Grobel. Rachel was so upset that she had been beaten that she told Sam that Jen was having an affair with Jason.

Later that night as a storm raged on Fire Island, Sam, armed with a butcher knife, set out to find and kill Jason. Jason, who had been warned by both Jen and Lauren to stay hidden, was hiding in the playground, but was spotted by Sam when he decided to go home.

In the meantime, Susan Steinhagen, the woman who oversaw the tennis program, determined that Robert had been stealing from the club. She studied his ledger during the women’s doubles tournament and noticed that he was not notating some lessons that he was teaching. She confronted him and he threatened her by stepping in front of him as if to keep her from leaving his office. Susan escaped by hitting him over the head with a tennis racket. That night, Robert went to Susan’s house where he tried to break in to retrieve his ledger. He saw Susan leave her house on her bike and followed her.

At the same time, Sam and Jason confronted each other on the boardwalk. They were joined by Jen and Lauren. Lauren screamed at Jason and hit him, pushing him into a person riding past them on a bike. The bike broke Jason’s fall, but pushed the rider, Susan, off the boardwalk. Sam examined Susan and believed she was dead. The others decided not to report what happened, but to pretend instead they had nothing to do with it. The next morning, Susan’s body was found by a little boy. Her death was ruled an accident by the police.

With some amateur detective work, Sam determined that Robert had been stealing from the tennis club and that Susan had been trying to escape him the night she died. Working together, Sam, Jen, and Robert came up with a plan to implicate Jason in Susan’s death, taking any attention from Robert. Sam and Jen hoped that by publicly embarrassing Jason that he and Lauren would sell their house in Salcombe. As planned, Jason was confronted by police at the dock as all the families were waiting for the ferry to take them to the mainland.

Robert moved to New York where he had been given a job by Larry Higgins, the head of the Salcombe Yacht Club Tennis Committee, to learn about his business. Despite how well Robert was doing financially, he still could not completely erase Salcombe from his mind. He remembered that on the night Susan had fallen from the boardwalk, he had gone back to retrieve his ledger. When he arrived, Susan was moving her arm and looking at him. Robert feared that if he helped her that she would tell everyone he was a thief, ruining the opportunity Larry had given him. Instead, he smothered Susan with his shirt. He believed he had been doing her a favor.