DUST – SUMMARY

Jane is a young girl who decides to move from California to New York, as she does not like the place she is living in. She goes there accompanied by her “boyfriend”, Dan. As they had to fly in separate flights, Jane arrives first. Then she goes to Lucy’s house, who is Dan’s sister. Once she is there, Lucy starts asking some embarrassing questions to Jane while offering her to drink vodka, and even asks the girl to change her dress, in an authoritarian way. Then, Lucy makes an analysis of Jane’s personality, identifying her with a waif. Lucy also plays this “game” (consisting on reinterpreting or “converting” a person in someone else in an imaginary world) with Henry, her husband.

After Dan arrives home at night, they all go out together to have dinner. He does not like Lucy too much, and he realises that his sister is trying to mark her territory, separating him from his “girlfriend” (in fact they are not a couple, they only have sex). Dan tries to persuade Jane from talking to Lucy, as he thinks she is a bad woman, but the girl does not follow his advice and continues accepting everything Lucy wants her to do, being helped by the alcohol the young girl has been drinking all the day long. Later in the restaurant Jane tells them that she had lost her parents when she was a child (this event has a lot of importance within the development of the story, because in the end, Jane realises that what she needs is a father and a mother near her, to protect her).

So, when they come back home, Lucy order everybody to sleep where she desires. She wanted to sleep with Jane, because she considered that Jane needed a mother by her side, so they finally sleep together. When Jane wakes up, she notices that Henry is also with them in bed, protecting her as Lucy wanted. The story finishes with the feeling that Jane has about the situation. We could say that she has found out their parents again, finding out their love, their rows, good and bad things; in summary, finding out again the people who once tried to protect her, but that unfortunately became dust, a dust that everybody hates and does not want to face.

Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© David Ibáñez Salinas
daisa@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press