The following version of this book was used to create the guide; Winman, Sarah. Still Life. Putnam, 2021.

At the beginning of Sarah Winman's novel, Still Life, Evelyn Skinner and Ulysses Temper met in Italy at the end of World War II. They shared a glass of wine, with Captain Darnley, and discussed art and survival. When Ulysses returned home, to East End London, he found that his wife, Peggy, had a child with another man. Peggy had fallen in love with an American soldier, Eddie Clayton, and believed that he would come back when the war ended. She joined a typing pool and clumsily attempted to raise her daughter, Alys. Ulysses worked at the pub, The Stoat, and helped take care of the child. Later on, in Somewhere Between an Atom and a Star, Ulysses received word that the man he saved from falling off a roof in Italy, Arturo Bernadini, had named his as the sole heir to his estate. Ulysses decided to move to Florence and asked Peggy to join him. Peggy refused his offer but insisted that he take Alys with him.

In, "The Stuff of Dreams", Ulysses, Cress, and Alys started a new life in Florence; Alys started school, Ulysses made globes, and Cress pursued his philosophical studies. On a trip to the island of Giglio, Cress formulated the idea to turn the first floor of their home into a small hotel for British tourists. They decided to name their inn Pensione Bertolini, after a similar pensione in the novel A Room with a View. That Christmas their friends from London came to visit; Peggy, Col, and Pete spent the holidays in Florence and the elective family communed over wine and conversation.

In, "The Most Unlikely-Looking Pair", Evelyn Skinner was teaching art history at a university in London. She and her friend, Dotty Cunningham, decided to holiday in Italy and they travelled to Florence. In the Tuscan city, Evelyn thought about the British soldier she met years before and wondered if he ever visited Florence. On the last day of her trip, Evelyn met a nine-year-old girl, named Alys. outside of the church. They discussed Deposition from the Cross, feminism, and art before Evelyn boarded her train. Later on, when Alys told her surrogate father that she met a woman named Evelyn, he knew that it was the same woman who he shared wine with, in a war torn cave, a decade earlier.

As Alys grew up, she fell in love with a girl named Romy and experienced heartbreak for the first time. Ulysses reminded her that to feel heartbroken was to know that you had experienced the full elation of love. Later on, when Alys was living in London, Florence was inundated with flood water. The storm left a thick sludge of oil and sewage on the citizens’ homes and business and destroyed their livelihoods. As national aid began to assist the city’s restoration, beatniks, students, and friends visited Florence to help the citizens remove the damaging sludge. After seeing a photograph of Ulysses in the newspaper, Evelyn traveled to the Tuscan city to assist the restoration and reunite with her old friend. While there, she served as a surrogate mother to Alys and helped Peggy recover from depression.

In the last chapter of the novel, "All About Evelyn", set in 1901, Evelyn Skinner was twenty years old and visiting Florence for the first time. She developed a romantic relationship with the maid, Livia, at the Pensione Simi. Her time in Italy helped Evelyn embrace her sexuality, appreciate art, and choose a life for herself that was unfettered by marriage or men. While Livia was no longer working at Pensione Simi, when Evelyn returned years later, she continued to use their relationship as a source of hope throughout her adult life. At the ends of the novel, after Evelyn’s ninety-ninth birthday party, she and Ulysses visited Captain Darnley’s grave.