The Power of Reputation

The issue of how to deal with having a bad reputation - how to cope with it, recover from it, transcend it and bury it - is the issue at the core of both the narrative and the experience of Deanna at the center of the narrative. It is a very personal struggle that as in most good writing, has universal overtones. In other words, Deanna's experience is, to some degree or another, that of any/everyone who has struggled with having an experience from the past define his and her present and future. Here it's important to note that the constrictive effects of a good reputation can, in their own way, be as damaging as those of a bad one.

It's also important to note that this theme manifests on another level as well. Given that reputation is, in essence, something that people have...