Written by Susan Meissner in 2023, the historical fiction novel Only the Beautiful is set in the time leading up to World War II and in the years following the war’s conclusion. The novel tells the story of Rose, a young, orphaned girl with synesthesia who is unjustly institutionalized for her condition. Over the course of the novel, she is forced to give up her infant daughter, after which she embarks on a mission to understand her condition and improve her life. At the same time, an old friend named Helen Calvert directly experiences the horrors of World War II. Upon returning to America and discovering what has happened to her friend, she becomes determined to find Rose and her child.

A popular and much-celebrated author, Susan Meissner has written over a dozen novels, many of which use fictional characters to explore the deeper interpersonal nuances of real historical events. Notable for its unflinching critique of a range of social issues, including the abuse inherent in the psychiatric institutions of the time, Only the Beautiful has won numerous readers’ choice awards for its carefully researched plot and vivid characters.

This guide refers to the e-book version of the 2023 Penguin Random House first edition text.

Content Warning: Both the source text and this guide contain descriptions of eugenics, sexual assault and rape, and the stigmatization of neurological conditions and mental health conditions. The novel also describes a sterilization procedure that is conducted without the patient’s consent. Because parts of the novel focus on the atrocities that occurred during World War II, the source text also includes descriptions of the Nazi regime’s eugenics-based practice of euthanizing children deemed to be undesirable.

Plot Summary

Rosanne Maras (Rosie) is a teenage girl living with the rare condition of synesthesia; in her unique experience of this neurological condition, sounds and sights provoke her to perceive different colors and shapes. She lives on a working vineyard in California with her parents and younger brother but becomes an orphan at the age of 16 when her family is killed in a tragic car accident. The owners of the vineyard, Truman and Celine Calvert, also live on the grounds and agree to become Rosanne’s guardians. They employ her as a live-in maid and assistant cook. One night, an inebriated Truman seduces Rosie and then rapes her. Although the two attempt to hide the incident, Rosie finds herself pregnant, and when her condition becomes noticeable, Celine surmises what happened and has Rosie committed to a psychiatric hospital, where she undergoes questioning about her synesthesia and eventually gives birth to a little girl named Amaryllis. After giving birth, she attempts to run away with another patient, but she is caught and returned to the institution. Her daughter is put into the foster system, and Rosie herself is medically sterilized against her will. Eventually, she is transferred to a halfway home and finds a job in a hotel. Considered to be a ward of the state, she works to prove that she is well enough to become fully independent again. After her 21st birthday, Rosie is granted her independence. While working at the hotel, she overhears a doctor talking about synesthesia. Amazed to discover that there are other people just like her, she approaches the doctor to ask him a range of questions.

Midway through the novel, the narrative shifts to the perspective of Helen Calvert, Truman’s older sister and Rosie’s childhood acquaintance. Living in Vienna and working as a nanny, Helen is now dealing with the fallout of World War II and the Nazi regime’s eugenics. Helen has lived in Europe for most of her adult life, moving from England to France and Austria and serving as a nanny. Now, as she works at her current assignment in Austria, the Nazi regime has enacted the so-called T4 program, which is designed to locate, abduct, and euthanize children who have been deemed unhealthy, unfit, or undesirable in any way. Unfortunately, the youngest daughter of the family for whom Helen currently works, a little girl by the name of Brigitta, becomes a victim of this program.

Devastated, Helen returns to America to visit her sister-in-law, Celine. Truman has recently been killed in a combat training exercise, and when Helen arrives at the vineyard, Celine reveals what her husband did to Rosie; those events are now more than eight years in the past. Helen resolves to discover what has become of Rosie and the baby she was forced to give up. Helen eventually discovers Rosie’s daughter, Amaryllis, at a local orphanage and adopts her. However, to avoid usurping the place of Amaryllis’s mother, she insists that the girl call her Auntie. Together, they build a happy life.

Building a career as a speaker and author, Helen works to spread awareness of the Nazi regime’s eugenics practices, as well as the implementation of other eugenics practices in the state of California. Years after she first adopts Amaryllis, Helen is reunited with Rosie at a book signing event. The narrative reveals that Rosie now goes by the name of Anne and has married the doctor and neuroscientist who studied her condition of synesthesia. She and her husband now live in Los Angeles. Helen reveals to Rosie/Anne that she found and adopted Amaryllis. Completely taken off guard, Rosie/Anne marvels at the fact that she can now be reunited with the daughter she had long given up as lost. Mother and daughter share a tearful embrace.