Summary

In February of 1988, Malcolm returns to Terminal Island to visit MacDonald. She asks him about a letter from McGinniss he viciously destroyed. She says he methodically crossed out each line as if “striking blows at the defenseless words on the page” (121). For Malcolm, it was the first time she had ever sensed something in MacDonald’s character that resembled McGinniss’s depiction of him. In the letter, McGinniss attempts to break through MacDonald’s reserve by asking him detailed and provoking questions about his sexual relations with his wife. He used the example of his own philandering and failed marriage to gain a sympathetic connection with MacDonald. According to Malcolm, when McGinniss said he was trying to get MacDonald to start talking like a real person, he meant he was trying to make MacDonald into a more interesting character appropriate for a novel...