Amanda B

Story Statement

A beautiful but wounded young woman must rescue herself from the clutches of a powerful manipulator in order to understand her history and find her way in the world.

Antagonist

Sergio arrives in Ariel’s life as Hades to Persephone. He is elegant, seductive, volatile, and at the core, hollow and insecure. He meets Ariel, a beautiful young woman who is just finding her feet in the world, and he zeros in on her. He believes he loves her, but does not understand the difference between love and possession. He is willing to play the long game in his vampiric desire to possess her so as to bolster himself and his ego by having a bright and beautiful young woman under his control.  Sergio charms her with his elegance and persistence and seduces her into an underworld of material privilege. Once she has fallen in love with him, in an instinctual attempt be in a position of power in the relationship, he begins to attack her sense of self with subtle degradation, passive aggression, and unpredictable angry outbursts. As her independence and sense of self diminish, it becomes increasingly difficult for her to break free of his clutches. After one of his lies is exposed, she pulls away, but he manages to pull her back by tricking her with a Faustian bargain in disguise. The repercussions of taking the bargain effectively alienate her from the friends and the life she has been working to create for herself, and places her in a position of financial dependence on Sergio. At this point the chase is over and Sergio is in control of Ariel’s life. He finds, like the golden goose slaughtered for its eggs, Ariel cannot to provide him with the continual supply of ego gratification he desires (she is just human after all). He perceives that he has been wronged and deceived, and in a narcissistic rage his destructive cruelty escalates. At the mercy of the unconscious chaotic forces at his core, he becomes a violent existential threat to Ariel, who must harness all of her strength to escape.

Title

Gravity and the Underworld

Comparables

White Oleander - Janet Fitch -  I explored the inner workings of the main character from a deep first-person perspective like White Oleander. My work explores personality pathology (narcissism) in a descriptive and non-didactic way, as does Janet Fitch.  Furthermore, the plot is centered on a character who must overcome toxic family dynamics and trauma to triumph. Additionally, my prose contain a similar sensibility.

Portrait of a Lady - Henry James - While I cannot compare my writing to the writing of Henry James in style, the themes and plot are comparable to a modern, fast-paced Portrait of a Lady. Ariel, like Isabel Archer, must navigate a world of wealth and privilege as she is coming of age and attempting to find her footing in an uncertain world. Like Isabel Archer, she is manipulated by a vampiric selfish man who diverts her from her path. Sergio is darker and more volatile than Gilbert Osmond, however, he is as calculated and deceitful in his attempts to pull Ariel under his sway and assume control of her life.

Hook Line

A young woman struggling to find her way in the aftermath of a chaotic childhood must learn her true strength to escape the chaos and emotional violence of a charming and vampiric manipulator who upends her life.

Settings

Denver, Colorado 2006-2009

The weather in Denver is extreme and capricious, mimicking the nature of Ariel’s relationship and the intensity of her inner life. The sun is piercing, and the air is painfully dry much of the time. Snow comes in blankets in the evening after a 65-degree day. The wind can be strong enough to blow news racks all over the road. Denver is also a city with a vibrant nightlife. Nightclubs, restaurants, and a great food scene comprise many of the secondary settings.

Ariel’s apartment - a cozy two-bedroom apartment that Ariel shares with her best friend. A cozy, peaceful apartment with a balcony and big trees outside. It is a place of respite, sanctuary, and reflection for Ariel. It is also the setting in which secondary conflicts often occur.

The nightclub - A contrived fairyland with darkness underneath its shiny veneer in which Ariel and her roommate attend a circus-esque party and are drugged.

Upscale romantic restaurants - Good lighting, delicious food, traditionally romantic. Where the romance between Sergio and Ariel is formed and often strengthened throughout the story.

Downtown cafe - On a stormy and windy day, this greasy spoon cafe, a dingy diner, is the setting of Ariel’s first real step back into Sergio’s clutches after the break-up.

Sergio’s house - A old stately home in Denver’s Congress Park neighborhood. The home is somehow always cold, even in during hot Denver summers. Dark cherrywood built-in shelving lines the living room, crown moulding on the high ceilings, and large mullioned windows that seem to repeal the light despite their south-facing exposure. A strange place for a young bachelor to live.

The University - Ariel’s graduate school. Beautiful small campus. The closest thing Denver has to an old New England campus.

The JW Marriott’s bar - A cavernous candlelit room, humming with quiet conversation and soft music. Where Ariel is seduced by the siren song of a beautiful, charismatic woman into signing on to a Trojan Horse of a project that will lead her back into Sergio’s clutches.

Coastal Orange County and San Diego County, California

A sharp contrast to Denver, Southern California is characterized by soft-filtered light, a soothing, sleepy marine layer, soft ocean breezes, and coastal greenery. This is a soft and inviting world sprinkled with the glitter of ostentatious wealth and the dirt of entitlement.

Ariel’s Dad’s house - Situated in Mystic Hills in Laguna Beach. A beautiful three-story home built into the side of a hill. Curated with performative symbols of wealth and culture.

Hotel near SNA - A corporate hotel, Sterile but well-appointed. A place that Ariel’s Dad leaves her alone for a weekend when she is a teenager (in a flashback)

San Diego Airport - A busy airport. Ariel goes to San Diego to try to get away from Sergio, but when she arrives at the airport, he meets her at the gate, begging her to hear him out. They go to the airport coffee shop to talk.

Balboa Park - Ornate Spanish Colonial architecture situated in a fecund bed of large pre-historic-appearing vegetation. A restaurant in the middle of the park where Ariel has lunch with a friend.

Los Angeles

Mostly seen in flashbacks, Ariel’s father’s LA is an eccentric place where the middle-class rules of Ariel’s upbringing don’t apply. A narcissist's playground; the land of the flashy philistine, con artists, and pick-up artists. It is here that Ariel learns how to suspend her sense of right and wrong, normal and absurd.

Brentwood Yoga Studio - A clean, minimalist studio presided over by a rock star of a yoga instructor. The glitterati of Hollywood, mostly white people, flock to this studio to do yoga hip-hop and gangster rap.

Malibu House - Situated on a rocky cliff with a huge stone terrace overlooking the ocean. The scene of a party that begins as a refined event but devolves into debauchery.

New York City

Seen through Ariel’s eyes as she sinks into a depression, New York is cold, hard, and grey, despite the excitement of New Year’s eve in an exclusive hotel club.

The Hotel - A 5-star hotel situated in the meatpacking district of NYC. Elite clientele and perfect service. Owned by Russian Oligarchs (i.e. mafia). An exclusive club exists in the basement of the hotel.

Basement Club - Filled with beautiful people for New Year’s Eve. Cocaine and vodka pour like honey from every direction. Ariel and Sergio have been invited to the club because Sergio is doing business with one of the Oligarchs who owns the hotel.

Island called The Caicos Club

A beautiful tropical paradise of the wealthy elite where the rules of normal society do not apply. Here the only real, although unwritten, rule, is do not offend the egos of the members. The Caicos Club is a private island developed with beautiful Modern Caribbean structures made of stone that create an effortless flow between the built environment and nature. There is an appearance of peace and serenity that is contrasted by the dramas of the inhabitants: wealthy family dynasties, celebrities, and the uncouth nouveau riche.

Conflict Sketch

The primary dramatic conflict of the book is the story arc between Ariel and Sergio. However, Ariel’s inner conflict based in her childhood tribulations sets the stage for what occurs. Ariel is introduced as a young woman struggling to steady herself and find her way in the world after a chaotic childhood. As a child, she was caught between two worlds: a middle-class Denver suburb inexplicably wrought with violence, and her father’s world in Southern California, an immoral playground of big money, fake money, con artists, and pick-up artists. All of this creates a core wound for Ariel, which leaves her susceptible to the Svengali-like Sergio. Her father, flamboyant and narcissistic, may often mean well, but he has given her very confusing messages about what is acceptable behavior from others and what it means to be a woman. In order to navigate her father’s world as a child and adolescent, she had to learn to suspend her sense of right and wrong. As such, she was primed to accept unacceptable behaviors and buy into the manipulation driven fairy-tale presented by a man like Sergio.

When we meet Ariel, she is psychologically reeling struggling with insomnia that has pushed her to the brink of her sanity. Her father urges her to begin practicing yoga and agrees to pay for her to do so. Through her yoga practice, the recognition of the trauma she experienced in her upbringing, and medication for her insomnia, she finds peace within herself for the first time and is ready to step into her future.

Her journey of healing and personal growth is diverted when Sergio enters her life. He sees her as a shiny object he wishes to possess. At their first meeting, she has the intuitive sense of a malevolent force but does not understand how to interpret it. Time passes, and she forgets about him. When he shows up again and begins to pursue her, she ignores her gut feeling and chooses to meet him for a date. He pulls her in with his charm and apparent sophistication. She resists the gravity of his charm, but when she finally falls in love, his confusing and capricious cruelty begins. His cruel manipulations are subtle at first, and Ariel does not know how to make sense of what is happening. She begins to doubt herself and her worth. Still fragile from the challenges of her early life, this self-doubt is the catalyst for a depression which allows Sergio to seize more emotional and psychological control. From this point forward, she is in an unwitting war to rescue herself and return to her center and her path.

At the midway point of the story, Ariel learns that Sergio is still married and in the midst of a nasty divorce. He has kept this from her, and her anger at the betrayal along with the help of her best friend are enough for Ariel to end the relationship. To win her back, Sergio begins a campaign of love bombing. He shows up everywhere Ariel goes with gifts and tearful apologies. She resists until he finds her Achilles heel: her fear about her future in the midst of the financial crisis of the early 2000s. He plays on her uncertainty about her future to pull her back into his orbit and ultimately under his control. Sergio uses a too-good-to-be-true offer be a wellness consultant for an exclusive club situated on a private island near Turks and Caicos. This puts her solidly back in his world as he is the lead consultant for the club's marine fleet. At the dream-like world of the club, Ariel decided that Sergio has changed and falls back in love. She does not see the ways in which the dream is subtly shifting into a nightmare. As Ariel is pulled deeper into Sergio’s underworld of wealth, privilege, and abuse, she loses her financial independence, her connection to friends and family, and nearly loses herself altogether. When his cruelty escalates to actual physical violence, in order to save herself, she must be willing to leave with nothing but the clothes on her back, her car, and her little dog. It is through this choice and act of bravery and will that she finds her way out of the underworld and back to her real life, healing herself and finding her true power in the world in the process.

Secondary Conflict

During her inward struggle to make it through her romantic entanglement, Ariel’s friends and her father try to help her from their own, sometimes distorted perspectives, with varying degrees of tact and kindness. Secondary conflicts emerge in these relationships as people who care for her try to provide her with advice and help, which she often does not take. The important relationships in her life are threatened by her continued participation in her relationship with Sergio making her more susceptible to his sway.