Place as a Source of Memory

Throughout the novel, the author uses Daphne's shifting relationship with place as a means of accessing memory and gradually exposing the truth of her longings and needs. At the start of the first section, Day 1, though Daphne is fixed in her office in San Francisco, she is overwhelmed by the scents and images of her hometown in Paiute County; these sense memories have the effect of transporting her outside her immediate setting and into her past. Of course Daphne's decision to temporarily abandon her urban life and return to Altavista with her daughter, cues a more encompassing immersion in Daphne's past. The roads leading into her former town as well as the landscapes trigger a series of authentic reminiscences in the movement of the narrative present. The author Daphne's physical journey towards her past as an entry into her psychic journey...