When Jack Lovett first meets Inez Victor on her 17th birthday (January 1, 1952), she's wearing dark glasses and a gardenia in her hair. Carla Lovett, Jack's wife notices his attraction for Inez, who hides her eyes because she'd been crying all day (85-6).

For most of the novel, however, Inez is in her 40s, and Didion mentions frequently the graying streak at her temple that Inez habitually combs under to hide it from view. What other images come to comprise her appearance for you as you read?

Didion writes that "Inez Victor had developed certain mannerisms peculiar to people in the public eye: A way of fixing her gaze in the middle distance, a habit of smoothing her face in repose by pressing up on her temples with her middle fingers; a noticeably frequent blink, as if the photographers' strobes had triggered a continuing flash on her retina" (54).

And we know that Inez thinks that the "major cost" of public life is "Memory, mainly" (51). What other mannerisms, behaviors, or ways of speaking come to define Inez Victor for you?

Find images, quotations, or descriptions of actions or mannerisms that define these other key characters in the novel. Record your answers in your reading notes. Pick up Carol Christian's object below for an example.

Paul Christian (Inez's father)
Carol Christian (Inez's mother)
Dwight Christian (Inez's uncle)
Ruthie Christian (Inez's aunt)
Harry Victor (Inez's husband, the Congressman)
Adlai Victor (Inez's son)
Jessie Victor (Inez's daughter)
Janet Christian Ziegler (Inez's sister)
Dick Ziegler (Janet's husband)
Jack Lovett (Inez's lover)
Billy Dillon (Harry Victor's advisor)
Frances Landau (a girl who "comes with the life")
Wendell Omura (Nisei Congressman murdered by Paul Christian)