The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer is a 1990 spin-off novel from the television series Twin Peaks by Jennifer Lynch.[1] Lynch, then aged 22, is the daughter of series co-creator David Lynch.[1] It was published between the airing of the first and second season.

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer
Cover of the Pocket Book edition
AuthorJennifer Lynch
CountryUS
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
Fictional diary
PublisherPocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster
Publication date
15 September 1990
Media typePrint
Pages184
ISBN99928-828-9-1

The novel is said to be "As seen by Jennifer Lynch," and is written in a matter-of-fact tone[2] from the point of view of Laura Palmer, a small-town teenager —a "good girl gone bad"[3]— who is abused and terrorized by the demonic entity BOB.[4] Lynch says she was told by her father and Mark Frost, co-creator of the series, to "be Laura Palmer,"[5] and that she "knew Laura so well it was like automatic writing."[6]

Contents

The book begins on Laura's 12th birthday in 1984,[3] and steadily matures in writing style and vocabulary.[7] It recounts standard teenage concerns of her first period, her first kiss, and her relationship with her parents, alongside experiences of sexual abuse, promiscuity, cocaine addiction, and her obsession with death.[2][4] Laura's poetry foreshadows her murder.[8]

In her third diary entry dated 23 July 1984, Laura originally states that she had her first nightmare foreshadowing BOB and his deeds in 1983, at the age of 10 or 11. However two years later, in entries dated 24 April and 22 June 1986, she ambiguously writes that she now "suddenly remembers many things" in detail that she does not want to remember, where she can't tell if those are real memories of humiliating and tormenting things that BOB has actually done to her, or that he has been "talking" and conditioning these new unpleasant memories and unwanted, dark desires into her at some point in the past ("Too many lies have been told about me.", and later, "I didn't want to have these memories of him."), although she tentatively starts to believe her new memories: "I think it's real. I think it's real!". (The concept of repressed vs. implanted memories is later revisited in The Secret History of Twin Peaks.) Especially her unwanted desires within herself have distressed her during many of her entries since she began writing her diary, as up to that point in April and June 1986 she has had no explanation for them and at a number of times throughout her diary, she expresses fear of God sentencing her to Hell for her impure urges regarding drugs, sex, and generally being an overall defiant, "bad girl" whenever no-one is looking. Laura's two new entries in April and June 1986 leave it unclear whether these newly found memories of what BOB has done to her or their implantation at his hands relate to a time after her 1984 entry, or even to a time earlier than what she in her 1984 entry originally thought to be her first dream of BOB in 1983, only indicating several times that her ordeal began "when I stopped skipping the rope". In two entries another few months later, on 10 and 11 September 1986, she again considers the possibility that BOB has always been only her personal hallucination, and in the latter states that BOB denies her "adult joys" that her distressing desires demand.

In a 10 December 1986 entry, she desperately tries to dispel the notion nagging at her that her sinful "thoughts" are BOB's machinations and tries to claim her desires as her own to take responsibility for them. Having been introduced to the new drug of cocaine in October 1986 and after months of constant use of it, she notes on 10 January 1987 a disturbing vision or "dream" of her father angrily questioning her about her recent obsessive visits to the local brothel. After another month, on 3 February 1987, while she is suffering of acute cocaine withdrawal and just when she realizes that she is the only person in the world that can see BOB, BOB begins conversing with her through her diary notes as her personality switches between Laura and BOB. Finally getting her cocaine fix on 2 April 1987, she begins blaming him again for the shameful fact that she "loves sex and drugs" as her belief in BOB as a real entity returns, and on 24 June 1987, she relinquishes all ability to act responsibly due to BOB.

On 12 November 1987, her two bedmates and drug dealers Leo Johnson and Bobby Briggs find her lying in her pony's stall, too drunk and high to walk out by herself. She expresses surprise in her diary that her friend Donna Hayward feels concerned for her, thinking that she deserves no care "because I believe too much in BOB by now". According to that night's entry, the trio spends the rest of the night ("just like Bonnie and Clyde", as Bobby puts it) to drive out with Leo's truck to Low Town a few miles out of Twin Peaks to steal a kilo of cocaine from the local drug syndicate, an undertaking which before long ends in a gang shootout before they arrive home with their new supply. In a vision, Laura relives the death of her cat Jupiter from a car accident four years ago as under the influence of the stolen cocaine, she drives Leo's truck over another cat that looks just like Jupiter did. The cat's owner, a little girl that resembles Laura from four years ago, is more shocked by Laura's emotional reaction than the death of her own cat, and she quickly forgives Laura, who is stunned at this displayal of selflessness greater than any she's seen around herself in years. She decides to quit her drug and sex habits, try to look for a student job in the morning, and wants to go home, but Leo decides to keep her in the woods for an orgy for the rest of the night. When she arrives home in the morning, she is confronted by BOB in her room, whereupon she tries to convince herself that he only exists in her head, but he only mocks and verbally abuses her and threatens to return soon.

Later, she takes jobs such as babysitting Benjamin Horne's mentally retarded son Johnnie, as a sales apprentice in Horne's boutique, starts the community service Meals on Wheels for the elderly, and is hired as a professional prostitute at the One-Eyed Jacks run by the Horne brothers and Blackie O’Reilly. While at Horne's mansion, she first meets therapist Dr. Jacoby who agrees to give her therapy sessions. Dr. Jacoby is the first person she can tell her entire plights to and he appears caring and understanding, but nothing can save Laura from her impending doom.

Her slow realisation of BOB's identity is described, although pages are 'missing' from the end of the diary, which ends with an undated entry in late 1989,[3] leaving the reader unable to reach a firm conclusion.[4] Lynch said that "the careful reader will know the clues and who the killer is,"[5] and the killer's identity is revealed in the second season.[4]

Commercial success and editions

The book reached number four on The New York Times paperback fiction best seller list in October 1990,[9] though some US book stores refused to stock it due to the graphic content.[10] It was published in the UK by Penguin Books in November 1990.[11] Entertainment Weekly said it was "gratifyingly faithful to the spirit of Peaks."[3]

On June 10, 2011, Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost announced that a new edition of the diary would be published in the fall of 2011, featuring a new foreword by himself and David Lynch.[12]

An audiobook, narrated by Sheryl Lee, was released in May 2017.[13]

See also

References
  1. Stanley, Alessandra (October 28, 1990). "Are the Owls What They Seem?". The New York Times.
  2. Jakicic, Cathy (20 October 1990). "Spinoff book tells all, if you're the Log Lady". The Milwaukee Sentinel. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  3. Tucker, Ken (5 October 1990). "The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  4. Lavery, David (1995). Full of secrets: critical approaches to Twin Peaks. Wayne State University Press. p. 7. ISBN 0-8143-2506-8.
  5. Hastings, Deborah (16 September 1990). "Book probes mind of Laura Palmer". Associated Press. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  6. Zekis, Rita (2 October 1990). "Laura Palmer's diarist fulfills fantasy". Toronto Star. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
  7. Zekas, Rita (13 October 1990). "Like father, like daughter". Toronto Star. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
  8. O'Connor, Tom (2007). "Bourgeois Myth Versus Media Poetry in Prime -time: Re-visiting Mark Frost and David Lynch's Twin Peaks". Poetic acts & new media. University Press of America. ISBN 0-7618-3630-6.
  9. "Paperback best sellers: October 28, 1990". The New York Times. 28 October 1990. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
  10. "Anne Frank she ain't". The Milwaukee Journal. 27 September 1990. Retrieved 27 June 2010.
  11. Whitney, Craig R. (8 November 1990). "'Twin Peaks': Splash on Both Sides of Atlantic; In Britain, It's All Just Beginning". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
  12. Twitter
  13. https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/15/14622944/twin-peaks-audiobook-secret-life-of-laura-palmer-sheryl-lee
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