By the end of that month, she knows not only her role from the beginning of the novel to its end, but also the complete novel itself, almost by heart. And what she can’t find in the novel, she creates: every event and every character, no matter how small, now has a story that precedes their appearance on the page. She knows every person’s routines and habits; she knows what they crave to eat and what hides behind the doors of their armoires. She sees their wrinkled foreheads and pursed lips; their hair, carefully arranged or disheveled and unwashed; their stooped shoulders, their straight
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