At the end of a long, cold winter in New York City, Christine Howth,
a freelance journalist, mourns the loss of her father while
contemplating the first anniversary of her divorce. It is time for
her, at age thirty, to halt her drift. A first step is to begin a
journal as a vehicle for reflection and a means of experimenting
with writing as she undertakes a first novel. A reconsideration of
her career is next, as her part-time work is not paying the rent.
Spring brings new possibilities. An old friend informs her of a
staff job at a magazine. An ex-lover, a Hollywood actor coming to
New York for a movie, urges her to write an article on the director,
David Loomis. In a departure, the normally private Loomis agrees to
a series of interviews and observations at rehearsals and on
location. It is her intention to describe the process and the people
responsible for producing a thoughtful film, but, unexpectedly,
Loomis unloads a personal secret that may jeopardize the film and
her profile. He requests that she inform no one, and, while she
readily agrees, she discovers deep into the assignment that her
editor has other priorities.
Over the summer, his struggle to make the film, and hers to write
about it, draw them together. The film production takes her up to
the Adirondacks, but her new staff job sends her to Paris; and the
family cabin calls her to Maine. Each trip excites her with
possibilities, but the pressures on Loomis pull them apart. Both
find they need to turn elsewhere for support and affection.
With fall should come culmination, and, indeed, Christine
completes the first installment of Loomis’s story, but her editor
has caught wind of Loomis’s secret and wants her to reveal what she
knows.
As winter returns, Christine works to resolve the difficulties,
but a turn of events reveals what a life of artistic expression can
cost. |
