Monday, November 19, 2007

THE SECRET DIARY OF LAURA PALMER by Jennifer Lynch

The Book: Jennifer Lynch, THE SECRET DIARY OF LAURA PALMER. Pocket trade paperback reprint, 1990. Spine is creased, book is otherwise in good condition.
First read: 1990
Owned since: 1990

An early post, since I'll be traveling most of the day. Thanks very much to last week's guest bloggers, who put several books on my to-be-read list.

This week is my birthday and Thanksgiving, so in honor of those two events, all the books this week will be guilty pleasures -- books I'm a little embarrassed to own, but wouldn't give up.

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer was a tie-in published between the first and second seasons of "Twin Peaks," which remains one of my all-time favorite TV series (and is now available in a DVD box set, in case anyone needs to buy me a birthday or Christmas present).

The first season of "Twin Peaks," in case you didn't watch it, focused on the murder of beautiful, popular, mysterious high school student Laura Palmer. Missing pages from Laura Palmer's diary were a key plot point. David Lynch's daughter Jennifer wrote this book to fill in backstory for obsessed fans -- er, enthusiastic supporters -- like me. At one point I owned two copies: one I bought myself, one someone gave me as a gift.

This is a lurid, disturbing book, and might not make much sense to anyone who hadn't watched the show. Laura Palmer, as the show played out, turned out to be a troubled young woman who abused drugs and was herself the victim of sexual abuse, and the diary recounts that experience.

I'll probably never reread this book, and I'm not sure why I kept it -- except that I like remembering my enthusiasm for all things "Twin Peaks," and the person I was back then. It's on my shelf less for its literary value than for its value as an artifact of my history.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was one of the first real books I ever read. Mom had a copy and told me to read it. I loved the book and still have Mom's copy. The dust jacket is torn but it is in otherwise good condition. I didn't know there were other books by this author. I'll have to go looking for it.

Patrick is home. Have a safe trip.

Kathy

Anonymous said...

Ah "Twin Peaks," back in the day I, along with several good friends, use to gather together to watch each weeks episode and the hosts of the evening would always serve cherry pie and a damn fine cup of coffee.

The second season of the show sorta went to heck in a handcart though. To this day I swear that it was because Lynch was completely taken by surprise at being picked up by the network for a second year.

Lynch: "You mean they want us back? Crap!"

Happy Birthday and have a great Thanksgiving.

rjb

Anna said...

You've read THIS and you make fun of ME reading Monica Lewinsky's book?!?! Unbelievable!