It is primarily about her hardscrabble childhood in California's San Fernando Valley, dominated by her difficult, volatile father, whom Ciment realized in hindsight was autistic. But about halfway through, Ciment's life takes a turn, when at 16, she signs up for figure drawing classes, which she pays for with earnings from a part-time job. She develops a crush on the teacher, a married artist 30 years her senior named Arnold Mesches. Within a year, they are having an affair.
"If Arnold kissed me first, should I refer to him in the language of today --sexual offender, transgressor, abuser of power? Or do I refer to him in the language of the late 90s, when my 45-year-old self wrote the scene? The president at that time was Clinton, and the blue dress was in the news. Men who preyed on younger women were called letches, cradle-robbers, dogs.