Three Tall Women (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780822214205)

A young lawyer, C, has been sent to the home of a client, a ninety-two-year-old woman A, to sort out her finances. A, who is frail and perhaps a bit senile, resists and is of no help to C. Teaming up with B, the old woman's matronly paid companion/caretaker, C tries to convince A that she must concentrate on the matters at hand. In A's beautifully appointed bedroom, she prods, discusses and bickers with B and C, her captives.

A's long life is laid out for display, no holds barred. She cascades from regal and charming to vicious and wretched as she wonders about and remembers her life: her husband and their cold, passionless marriage; her son and their estrangement. How did she become this? Who is she? When recounting her most painful memory, she suffers a stroke.

In Act Two, A's comatose body lies in bed as B and C observe no changes in her condition. In a startling coup-de-theatre, A enters, very much alive and quite lucid. The three women are now the stages of A's life: the imperious old woman, the regal matron and the young woman of 26. Her life, memories and reminiscences are now unceremoniously examined and questioned, accepted or not, but at last understood. In the end, her son arrives and kneels at her bedside, but it is too late.