The Unspeakable Act

Jackie Kimball is a likable, normal 17-year-old girl in every way but one: she has been in love all her life with her brother Matthew, one year older than her. Matthew is bringing his new girlfriend Yolanda home to dinner at the Kimball house, and Jackie's melodramatic anguish disrupts the family's preparations. Surprisingly sociable during the dinner, Jackie later confronts her brother tearfully in the attic room that is their traditional meeting place. Matthew and Jackie have been symbiotically close all their lives, but Matthew doesn't share Jackie's incestuous inclinations, and Jackie has no choice but to deal with the intrusion of adult life upon their childhood intimacy. Long widowed, Jackie's mother Alice is a sympathetic but detached presence, often found at her writing desk, drinking coffee and composing letters and journals. An older brother, Will, is an exchange student abroad; sister Jeanne, impatient with Jackie's flamboyance, is poised to leave home soon. Though Jackie ...