The career of Carol Eastman--writing as Adrien Joyce--has been characterized primarily by sparsity--sparsity of biographical information, sparsity of output (four films in nine years), and sparseness in the style of her work. The sister of screenwriter Charles Eastman (Little Fauss and Big Halsy, 1970), she emerged during the 1970s as an important member of a new generation of film-makers. In response to the needlessly elaborate, big-budget films of the decade, a smaller European-influenced American film began to appear, championed by filmmakers such as Monte Hellman, Bob Rafelson, and Jack Nicholson. Eastman became part of this group and helped to create a trend of cinema neorealism analogous to the films of the postwar years in Europe.

Eastman's scriptwriting began with two episodes for the television series Run for Your Life, which ran from 1965 to 1968, about Paul Bryan (Ben Gazzara), who had a terminal illness and only two years to live...