3 The Actor's Part - Michigan (1989 - 1990) Summary and Analysis

This chapter of Marya's book covers the summer after her ninth grade in high school and her year at Interlochen, a boarding school for the arts. Marya spends the summer bragging to her friends that she is finally breaking free. She imagines the new person she will become when she earns success at her school. Her new vision of herself also includes a much slimmer Marya, one whom everyone will congratulate for losing weight. In conjunction with this vision, Marya decides to stop eating once she enters the state of Michigan. Already she has begun to lose weight noticeably. Marya eats, but then throws up. She is also still doing drugs and sleeping around.

Marya writes at this point that she believes her problem stems from the fact that she has...