8. 5 Persephone Herself Is but a Voice - California (1990-1991) Summary and Analysis

In this chapter of her book, Marya writes about the time she spends in California with her stepmother after she is released from Methodist Hospital for the first time. As Marya describes her stepmother's kitchen, her reference to the way that the cereal in the cupboards scratches her throat on the way back shows the reader that Marya will return to her eating disorder and her habits of binging and purging.

Shortly after Marya arrives in California, she realizes she is pregnant again. She waits, apparently hoping she will have a miscarriage again. When this does not happen, she throws herself down the stairs, causing a spontaneous miscarriage. She cries, not because she has killed her baby, but because she thinks she is fat. Marya...