THE STORY: Having come home to visit her mother, who has been placed in a nursing home, Diane, now a well-known writer, is being interviewed for the local newspaper. Only she speaks. Her remarks are in answer to such questions as where she gets the ideas for her stories; whether her youth in Mountain Grove influenced her work; and why she decided to leave home. At first obliging and matter-of-fact, Diane gradually begins to reveal more than her questioner might have bargained for—a childhood marred by the loss of her father and her mother’s coldness; the promiscuity she was driven to in search of the love and concern that were denied her at home; and, most devastating of all, the molestation by her stepfather which shaped her character indelibly—and led to the harrowing event she describes at the end of her recital. To the world at large Diane is someone who has shaken off the dust of Mountain Grove and has gone on to bigger and better things. To herself, however, it is painfully clear that she is what her earlier life ordained—because no one ever really leaves the place from which they came.
Evocative and deeply revealing, this fascinating monodrama explores the “personal history” of a woman writer who makes it disturbingly evident that we are all the product not only of our own drives and desires, but also of the experiences which others impose on us—often against our wishes—and which sometimes burrow deep into our consciousness.
Included in the collection
The Moonshot Tape and A Poster of the Cosmos.
