Lady in the Lake
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The final chapter of Laura LippmansLady in the Lakeis in Cleos voice.
Years after the events in 1960s Baltimore, she still talks to Maddie in her head.
Did I tell you everything?
I wasnt about to trust you with my secrets, Maddie Schwartz.
Who could blame me?
You were careless with my life and my death.
What would it have meant to get all of Cleos story?
What would it mean to have tested how careless Maddie could be with Cleos lifeanddeath?
Cleos whereabouts and the many intricacies of her story are left vague.
Not so inLady in the Lakes television adaptation, which fittingly calls its final episode My story.
Cleo wont be just a narrative crutch for a young dissatisfied suburban wifes character development.
Shes no mere plot unit on which to refract Maddies own life.
Here, she is a fully fleshed woman whose agency is front and center.
In the process, we get all of our lingering questions answered.
We first flash back to 1952, when Dora and Cleo hope for a big break.
Theres a talent show (at Shell Gordons space, no less!
Its a simple agreement but one that Cleo cant shake off once theyre back downstairs.
Its aSliding Doorsmoment for the young woman, the night when everything couldve gone a different way.
I need you to stop, she implores.
She even offers her a bigger story: I wanna take down Shell Gordon.
And Maddie can have that front-page story all to herself.
But we all know Maddie.
Shes not one to give up.
Or to heed the advice, let alone the counsel of others.
I feel like I just woke up from a dream, she tells him.
Im still wrapped up in the story.
I have to see this through.
All those images quickly telegraph the ending of this thorny tale.
And then, the coup de grace.
Maddie, now older, is hawking her latest book.
For instance, she nixed an entire subplot about Cleos affair with another man!
You think every story is your story; what a read to get from your own son!
But Seth isnt wrong.
I almost wish Maddie hadnt gifted Judith (who deserved a bit more narrative real estate!
Can we begin the campaign to get aLady in the Lakesoundtrack?
