The Guncle Abroad

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to addiction and anti-gay bias.

Patrick O’Hara sits in his hotel room and looks out onto the scenic Lake Como. He is hungover, his headache only made worse by the loud voices of his niece and nephew, Maisie (now 14) and Grant (now 11). Patrick watches as his brother, Greg, and his fiancée, Livia, walk down to the water and board a boat. Patrick wonders what might happen later that day at their wedding, and whether the wedding will even happen. The night before, Patrick and his niece and nephew, or niblings, as he calls them, made a scene. Both Grant and Maisie struggle to accept the reality that their father is to remarry. Their mother, Sara, died five years prior. The summer she died, Patrick took in Maisie and Grant while Greg attended rehab. Patrick helped the two young children navigate their grief.

In the few weeks before this wedding, Patrick traveled with his niblings across Europe, hoping to teach them about love languages, with the goal of having them accept Livia, but he fears that he failed.