Summary

Irene America keeps two diaries: one is a red diary that she stores in her home office, while the other is a blue notebook, locked in a safe-deposit box, that she considers her “real diary” (3). Irene’s husband, a successful painter named Gil, reads the red diary when she leaves home. He unintentionally references a line from the diary, thus prompting Irene to start writing in the blue notebook.

Irene works on her PhD thesis, which revolves around the painter George Catlin. She and Gil have three children: Florian, Riel, and Stoney. Gil’s paintings depict Irene in “all her incarnations” (8). The paintings navigate, in part, their shared Native American heritage. Gil is obsessed with Irene but senses a distance between them. He suspects that she has had an affair with a friend named Germaine.

In the blue notebook, Irene discusses her revelation...