Judith

On 1/10/2021 at 11:32 AM, Admin_99 said:

ASSIGNMENT

Act of Story Statement.docx

Essential Trivia, similar to a trauma narrative, is an experiential work, not a linear one.

The heroine, a young woman in her mid-30s, is reasonably attractive, reasonably fit, reasonably stylish, but with no unusual memorable characteristics.  Power and seduction, not selection and love, have been the modus operandi of her male companions, wrong choices her response.  At the commencement of the novel, the heroine is recovering from the latest in failed romances, this time with a sophisticated Lothario who specialized in broken promises and calculated insults.  

Flashbacks occur when she lying in a hospital bed, perhaps due to a suicide attempt when she stepped in front of an oncoming truck.  Events and linked memories may occur in recent time, in past time, or not at all; the concept of time is of ruling importance, as is the concept of loss.

The protagonist, not a sympathetic character, challenges the smiley face of modern America, the “you are what you think”..  Her feeling of disconnectedness, of just existing, is key to the novel, its oncept of time and non-time.  She hates people, but craves connectedness.  Her internal goal, the discovery of meaning in a beautiful universe seeming to exist without meaning, The relentless fearsome pursuit of earning a living, requiring being liked as well as being competent, consumes her energy. 

Some of the men, real or imagined, are abusive but still sympathetic characters in their humanness. There may be a Cassandra moment.  The novel ends with the woman perched on a cliff over the sea, contemplating the next.