August 2019

August 2019 is the time marker for Hazel’s arrival at her father’s home, where an unsettling delivery turns an ordinary living room into a measure of her precarious circumstances. The scene joins the strange domestic presence of a life-size intimacy doll to Hazel’s immediate concern with finding somewhere to sleep.

Setting and Arrival

Hazel’s Father (Herbert), then seventy-six, has bought a life-size female doll designed for intimate use. Its arrival crate resembles a plain pine coffin, an image that recalls to Hazel the passage in Dracula in which its central figure is shipped overseas by boat. The doll’s arrival therefore brings together an oddly practical purchase and an unmistakably deathlike container, without making either image less domestic: the crate is now in the middle of the living room.

The Unpacked Crate

The crate has been forced open with an assortment of proper and makeshift tools, including a can opener. Chipped wood litters the floor, and the damage makes the container seem almost as if something inside had broken free and begun prowling through the house. Hazel hears the mechanical crawl of her father’s Rascal mobility scooter approaching behind her, but remains fixed on the crate, large enough for her to climb into.

Hazel’s Circumstances

By August, Hazel is technically homeless and has begun assessing things around her for their potential as an available bed. That practical calculation redirects the scene’s grotesque visual joke into a sign of her vulnerability: while her father’s unusual purchase occupies the room, Hazel sees the emptied shipping crate as possible shelter. The date thus anchors the novel’s opening contrast between an unsettling object and the immediate, material need that shapes Hazel’s attention.