Summary

The preludes introduce Marian and Hadley in media res before the story truly begins. The reader meets Marian Graves through her logbook in an entry dated March 1950, in Antarctica. She writes, “My last descent won’t be the tumbling helpless kind but a sharp gannet plunge,” which suggests her death is imminent (7). The reader is then introduced to Hadley Baxter in 2014, about to begin filming the biopic, Peregrine, in which she stars as Marian. Hadley reflects generally on her life up to that moment, recognizing how, like Marian, she is an orphan; her parents presumably died in a plane crash. Also like Marian, Hadley was raised by her uncle, Mitch, who got her into acting at a young age. Her tone of thought is disinterested, and Hadley seems scornful of celebrity-life and sardonic about...