Mr. Davies’s Reviews > Actress > Status Update

book summary —
If she was more prone to difficulty offstage, onstage she grew, I thought, extraordinary in these last years. Katherine O'Dell weathered very beautifully. The fictions got somehow thinner, the actress behind them more acutely, painfully there. It was an elaborate, slow peeling of the self, hard to watch.

In bed with husband, older, present-day —

My guilt turns just as quickly to gratitude - and this too a little fake (oh Darling!) - I roll towards you, and find the puzzle of your body moving towards mine, forearm, belly, a question that is so easily answered. My goodness, yes.

“Sure, ‘this only butter.”

Suddenly a “you” in the narration — a college liaison, rival, soon to be lover —

I was about to expose you as a fraud - yes, to the world, but more importantly and essentially to yourself. I would hold the mirror up to your fraudulence, after which you would shriek and dissolve in your own fake reflection and I would not have to sleep with you after all.

Mother’s movie accents — first, the impossible, unplaceable “trans-atlantic”, then the performative Irish

Her Irish accent was a fake Irish accent, which turne into a symbolic Irish accent and then, in time, to one tha sounded almost ordinary. I actually find it hard to remembe what she sounded like - I mean to place her socially, or put her on some map. Even in private - especially in private
- her voice was gorgeous. Like something you could eat.